DIGGING STUFF UP: Earthen Grave - 'Earthen Grave'
Blink-and-you-missed-them, but we didn't blink.
EARTHEN GRAVE
’Earthen Grave’
Self-released (2012, reissued by Ripple Music a year later)
It’s been a while since we dug some stuff up from the past, right? And there’s not even a particular reason for this specific record to signal the return of this feature, other than me randomly having gotten back to it in the last couple of weeks, as I do sometimes. Despite looking for all the world like yet another Black Sabbath riff factory from that cover artwork/band name/line-up/you name it, Earthen Grave did have a few very unusual ideas and ways to approach what you could generally call doom metal, with a few Sabbathian clouds raining down on them for sure, but a lot more going on too. Shame they never got to develop this preciously unique style, as the main dudes in the band, guitarist Jason C Muxlow and the absolutely legendary Ron Holzner, decided to put an end to the band just a couple of years after this, their first and only record, was released. It always sucks when cool bands disappear, but when bands that offer a breath of fresh air into an often stale genre disappear without fulfilling their true potential, that sucks even more. So that’s the first hurdle you have to clear before you can fully enjoy ‘Earthen Grave’. Get past the what-might-have-been aftertaste, however, and it’s pretty much smooth sailing from then on.
Not that there aren’t several eyebrow-raising moments, especially if you happen to have a more old-school, conservative sort of view of doom/heavy metal. See that person up there, that’s Rachel Barton Pine, a classically trained vocalist with a proper solo career. She had guested on Novembers Doom’s ‘Aphotic’ album before appearing in Earthen Grave as a full band member, and yes, her instrument features prominently throughout the album. No, it doesn’t sound like any phase of My Dying Bride at all, nor like any other doom metal band you might be thinking of that has used the violin for the vibes given by its weeping quality. I would venture that the violin in Earthen Grave was treated like another guitar, as Rachel plays parts, or actually real riffs, that could easily (and sometimes seem to also really be) played by the axe-wielders, Jason C Muxlow and Tony Spillman. It’s just as essential as the guitars in the driving of some songs and feels more embedded in the songwriting and less like a curiosity than almost any other metal-band-with-violins you can think of.
Another unique aspect of the band, which will take exactly 1:47 to notice if you play the album from the beginning, its splendid opening title-track a perfect display of everything that’s great and unusual about this group, is the voice. I’ve read in an old review that Mark Weiner sounds more like a country singer than even a metal one, and while that might be going a little too far in the description, I do get the point of the comparison. Using a much higher pitch than usual for doom, but far from any kind of heavy metal wail, his voice is simultaneously fragile and expressive, melodious and strong, and he knows how to apply the various emotions in perfect tune with the songwriting. Notice how on ‘Blood Drunk’, for example, he rises in intensity as the song hardens and gets faster, carrying it until its logical yet sudden cut-off point at the end. It’s just on instance where an already great and atypical doom song is elevated to greatness by a remarkable singer. Other highlights include the massive groove of ‘Dismal Times’ and ‘Beneath A Shovel Load’, and a daring cover of ‘Relentless’ (do I need to say it’s a Pentagram original?), which few other bands/singers could pull off with this kind of class.
It’s been sad to see, in the past few years, that Mark doesn’t seem to have had any post-Earthen Grave activity that really showcases his talent properly - until now, at least. In what could have perfectly served as an excuse to bring up Earthen Grave, if only I had known about it before I decided to write about them, is the new album by this band called ÇÖKÜŞ (“pronounced cho-koosh”, they clarify, which is “Turkish for ‘decline’ or ‘collapse’”), which includes Mark on vocals and also Earthen Grave (and former Lair Of The Minotaur, among others) drummer Chris Wozniak. Their debut ‘An Hour Of Lies’ was released just a couple of weeks ago, and while it doesn’t reach Earthen Grave levels of brilliance just yet, it’s an interesting debut that you’d do well to lend an ear to:
After that, why not wash it down with a little trip down memory lane and give ‘Earthen Grave’ one more spin on the year of its 12th birthday? It aged really well, too.
Tracklist:
01. Earthen Grave
02. Life Carries On
03. Burning A Sinner
04. Blood Drunk
05. Dismal Times
06. Tilted World
07. Beneath A Shovel Load
08. Fall In
09. Relentless
10. Death On The High Seas
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