Once upon a time, long, long ago, one of our writers summed up the music of Earth Ship as “raw, no-nonsense sludge metal that would rather kick your teeth in than wow you with any fancy tricks, and because of that, it’s excellent.“
Back then, the subject was this German band’s second album, Iron Chest. Since then they’ve released three more albums and a pair of EPs, and now their sixth full-length overall is on the horizon. Entitled Soar, it’s set for release on August 9th by The Lasting Dose Records.
What we have for you today is a video for a recently released single from the new album, and its name is “Bereft“.
photo by Yukyong Ryang
The song immediately brings us clobbering drums and humongous riffage that stomps like a brontosaur that found its groove, coupled with gritty, ferocious snarls which bring other beasts to mind. But the lead guitar ecstatically quivers and wails toward the rafters, in contrast to the gargantuan, gut-busting impact of what’s happening around it.
The song is primal, compulsive music, made not just for getting heads moving but for triggering a full-body lurch in its listeners, and as it evolves it gets even heavier and more capable of heaving the earth and fracturing concrete.
Near the end, with the drums still going off like gun-shots and the fuzz-bombed grooves still heaving, the lead guitar wails again, seizing attention again, but this time it sounds more like agony than ecstasy — in keeping with the song’s overarching air of… bereavement.
Speaking of full-body lurches, you’ll see plenty of that in the video’s footage of Earth Ship audiences, along with the powerhouse intensity the band bring to their stage performances.
The band have provided this statement about the song you’ve just heard and the video you’ve just seen:
“‘Bereft‘ was the very first song we wrote for the new album and which we had already played live a few times. It’s a pretty heavy chunk of a song, filled with fat riffs but also catchy melodies. As for the video, we were very lucky that our good friend Alex, who has produced some of our videos before, joined us on tour in 2023/2024 again and gathered a lot of great footage for this track.”
“Bereft” is the second single released from Soar so far. We’re also including a stream of the first one, “Ghost Town“. It pulls no punches either — primitive, massive, lurching in its momentum, vocally scarring, sinew-triggering in the impact of its monster hooks.
But the vocals seem even more intense, even more unhinged in their screaming pain, and the soloing this time is woozy and narcotic, spreading surreal hallucinations against the backdrop of neck-cracking percussion and granite-chewing bass lines.
We’ll also share this comment from Earth Ship about Soar as a whole:
“A phantasmagorical exploration of fever dreams and twilight states, Soar is a psychotronic collection of swaggering rhythms and dazzling textures. EARTH SHIP uncover a world in which every extended riff is journey into trance Atlantis, where your mind is immersed in hazy lofi-lullabies and heavy retro sounds.”
As before, on Soar Earth Ship consists of the core duo of Jan and Sabine Oberg (who also play together in GRIN and Slowshine), this time joined by Slowshine drummer André Klein (also The Smokin ’44’s).
photo by Alex Kraudelt
Soar will be available on CD, vinyl and digitally on August 9th. It’s recommended for fans of Melvins, Mastodon, Crowbar, and Celtic Frost. It features artwork and layout by Benedikt Demmer, Druckwelle Design.
PRE-ORDER:
https://thelastingdoserecords.bandcamp.com/album/soar
EARTH SHIP:
https://earthship.bandcamp.com/album/soar
https://www.instagram.com/earthship_official/
https://www.facebook.com/wearetheearthship/