ELDER, THROUGH ZERO

Elder have been around long enough now that it’s easy to lose sight of just how much ground they’ve covered. Formed in Massachusetts in 2006, the band started firmly in the world of heavy psychedelic and stoner rock. But over the years, and especially since 2015’s Lore, they’ve steadily expanded their sound, blending prog, kosmische, and heavy rock.

With Through Zero, their seventh album, the band refines what they’ve been building over the past decade while continuing to loosen their boundaries. There’s still the weight and drive that has always defined them, but it’s balanced by softer passages, more electronic textures, and moments that don’t feel bound by what the band “should” sound like. At the same time, there’s a renewed focus on strong, effective riffs rather than complexity for its own sake. It’s a subtle shift, but an important one.

Borrowing from engineering, the album’s title refers to a signal passing through zero and continuing into the negative plane. It’s an idea that led singer and guitarist Nick DiSalvo to think about reality as something less linear than we tend to assume, with themes of life and death, fear and hope all existing along the same path.

What stands out most is how natural it all feels. Through Zero feels like a culmination of everything the band has been building since Lore. In a genre that often leans on repetition, Elder has managed to remain not only relevant, but foundational, a band that helped define the space and continues to reshape it nearly twenty years in.