EARTH: Fear of Tomorrow

Released: 2009

It seems like ages since I’ve heard much from Earth although they’ve toured with Dismember twice and never really gone away. I’d heard rumours of something new from them for a while and I’m glad to see that rumour has become fact in the shape of Fear of Tomorrow.

In the seven years since the last album, their sound hasn’t changed much despite most of the band having been replaced in the meantime. Essentially, they are still very much about playing classic Swedish-style melodic death metal as crushingly as possible. The biggest difference is that the keyboards have been integrated into the music more seamlessly than before, when Earth seemed to add breakdowns just to accommodate them.

The keys work best in the two more expansive tracks, “Gagged and Bound” and the brilliant “Don’t Look Back” that features the album’s best dynamics and some harmony backing vocals from Sarah Jezebel Deva of CoF and Therion fame. On the rest of Fear of Tomorrow, the guitars truly dominate. Every song is a feast of catchy melodic and heavy death metal riffs and harmonised guitar lines in the Gothenburg tradition. It has to be said, however, that apart from the songs previously mentioned, this is a bit lacking in diversity. “Tomorrow” and “Terrorized” are short and speedy with the latter closing in on grind intensity. Other songs vary the pace only a little between fast and faster and the band’s reliance on the standard galloping riff patterns of early In Flames and Dark Tranquillity makes a lot of the tracks sound rather alike. It takes a second or third listen before the subtleties and vagaries of different songs emerge; for example there is a sprinkling of solos which the band has made little use of until now. Still, the catchiness alone will carry the listener through much of the album’s blood-soaked tracks. The hooks are immense and everywhere. The songs drip with them, and the precision playing and expert production erase most of the feelings of sameiness quite quickly.

Earth is one of the few bands still actually playing the pure form of this style and do so extremely well, so Fear of Tomorrow will definitely have appeal to fans who yearn for the days of The Gallery or The Jester Race and “Don’t Look Back” is without doubt the finest thing they’ve done since “Prophecy and Destiny” off their debut.

1. Tomorrow
2. Gagged and Bound
3. Banner of Death
4. Land of the Dead
5. Terrorized
6. Morbid End
7. Visions of Blood
8. Don't Look Back
9. Bloody Carnival
10. Human Carnage - The Requiem
11. Balls to the Wall/Seeing Red
12. Damned Forevermore

Rating: 70%

EARTH: The Bleeding Fields

Released: 2002

Melbourne’s Earth is undoubtedly one of the best Australian metal bands around and on their first album they more than proved their mettle with some malicious death metal laden with crushing riffs, demonic vocals and surging melodies.

Those familiar with the first album may have been a little taken aback with the follow-up at first however, because on The Bleeding Fields Earth takes a more simplistic attitude than with the more elaborate debut, injecting a rockier feel overall and eschewing the Byronesque lyrics for rather more graphic depictions of carnage and violence. The style may be a little different, but it is by no means any less effective and powerful. Indeed, as was Star Condemn’d, The Bleeding Fields is nothing less than a excellent display of fearsome and heavy melodic death metal. The Entombed-like rockier edge does nothing to lessen Earth’s impact, although admittedly there are times when some of the riffs do sound rather alike, particularly on the first two tracks, and overall the effect is striking. Bren Birge’s vocals are truly immense, matching the outright fury of the band’s assault. It’s hard to choose a stand out track because the whole album is full of them, but ‘The Undead’ and ‘Armageddon’ are awesome, ‘Human Carnage’ and ‘Alive’ are similarly incredible and the re-recorded version of ‘Of This Spell’ is just as impressive this time around.

The album also features a hidden cover of AC/DC’s ‘Let Me Put My Love Into You’ that shows Earth in a somewhat more rambunctious and jovial mood than is felt elsewhere. The vocals on this track are by Terry Vainoras, who replaced Birge in the band for a couple of years after this was recorded.

The Bleeding Fields is another triumph for this great band.

1. The Bleeding Fields
2. Black Earth
3. Born to Die
4. Reign of Hate
5. Alive
6. The Undead
7. From the Grave
8. Human Carnage
9. Of This Spell
10. Armageddon
11. (untitled)
12. Let Me Put Me Love Into You (unlisted)

Rating: 92%