Hello and welcome back to the Bandcamp Buried Treasure article series, where I'll be hunting down Buy It Now/Free Download-payment option albums on Bandcamp by the best bands you've never heard! The goal is to introduce you to smaller bands or obscure side-projects you might not have heard of. Anything to expand your musical horizons by just a little bit each week, all while keeping your cost (potentially) down! This week we'll be listening to Minneapolis-based post-metal group Earthrise!
Right from the looming, crushing noises of "Challenger Deep," it's fairly clear that Earthrise aren't going to make this a quick slaying. No. They're more the type to put a wooden board on your head and pile rocks on continuously until your skull cracks and everything comes leaking out. There's not much in terms of speed variation or major shifts in sound here either- Eras Lost is a lumbering monster that legitimately wants to crush you into the earth. Just give it some time.
Eras Lost might initially seem like it'll be a fairly passive listen in that there isn't a whole lot going on, but that's the beauty of the record. There's plenty of repetition and churning of riffs, but slow evolution is the name of the game. Whereas a riff might go on for a solid thirty seconds or a minute, it'll change in a very subtle way that's just noticeable enough to get you interested in what the next section has to offer. Again, it's a lumbering behemoth of a record that you'll be hypnotized by… and finally notice you've been slowly but surely banging your head fo the last half an hour or so.
The music is great, the vocals are vicious and bludgeoning, but the thing that seals the deal for Eras Lost is the naturally distorted, roomy production. There's something about that sound that adds this extra weight to the music and puts it right over the top into "stupid heavy." Earthrise seem like the kind of band that put on a batshit insane live show that leaves everyone with a few bruises and cuts to discover the next day, and this is coming from a dude who has heard this record only three or four time now. The only reason I'm guessing this is because- recurring topic- the production of the record sounds so massive that it's hard not to imagine this band bringing down the entire venue around them as they play! If you can bring the same energy, or perceived energy, on your recorded album as you do live (or damn near close to it), then there's something to be said. Earthrise just sound… passionate, pissed off, destructive, immense, and above all heavy as fuck.
Eras Lost should be sitting on your desktop right about now.
