This 2 track demo by North Carolina’s Erstwhile shows their musical diversity, but at the same time, it shows some lack of creativity.  The two songs are both completely different in style with In Your Burning Water being the heavier and  being the less aggressive / more subdued. In Your Burning Water is a track full of energy and angst that positions itself along side of bands like 16 Volt.  While they are good at what they do, Erstwhile has a tendency to fall back on past musical trends.  The first of these is in the opening of …Burning Water.  The rhythm sounds as if it were lifted straight off of Ministry’s Land of Rape and Honey CD.  Another thing that bothered me about this track (as well as Devotion) was the use of Hellraiser samples.  Now, I’m as much a fan of the movie as the next electro-head, but every possible sample that could be pulled from this movie has already been extracted and used extensively…it’s time to move forward.  All right, enough negativity.  As mentioned above, Devotion is a less harsh piece that has notably good, almost goth-like vocals and some admirable guitar work.  The overall feeling that this piece projects is more laid back.  While the Erstwhile sound seems to be tight, some of their ideas seem to be a bit loose.  All they need is a little fine tuning and they’ll be able to compete with the bigger boys on the electro-guitar playground.
    
Erstwhile is:
Chris Blakley / Bill Brooks / Keven Pelepako / Dave English
Contact Erstwhile @
PO Box 16394
Chapel Hill, NC 27516-6394
USA
e-mail: blind@mindspring.com
Erstwhile homepage:
http://www.mindspring.com/~blind