ALBUM REVIEW: The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me – Armed For Apocalypse
If you could distil the essence of apocalyptic havoc into a syringe and inject it into your ear canals, it would still have nothing on the arsenal of post-metal grit that is ARMED FOR APOCALYPSE’s fourth album, The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me.
The now Oregon-based four-piece have switched out the unrelenting aggression of their previous album, Ritual Violence, for something bleaker and more tumultuous. The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me is a dense, grooved-up weapon that pulsates with the excruciating prevalence of hope in a space rife with conflict, as doom is dragged through the sludge of a weather-beaten landscape, kept alive by the hardcore fervour biting at its heels.
Drown’s distorted opening with guitarist/vocalist Nate Burman’s savage growl sets the immediate tone of the album, one that will stomp through tempos and moments of melancholy, but never depart too far from the imposing onslaught of sludgey anguish. Ashes Of The Night faithfully chugs through a barren wasteland of sonic erosion as Nate scratches out nihilistic lyrics, “no hope, no relief”. That tempo stomping just mentioned? It receives a forthright pummelling in Spellbound, the aggressive, down-tuned riffs taking the nihilism and shoving it into a brutal, churning mix of “malice”, “violence”, and the decision not to “lay down and die”. An almost hardcore punk rager opens up in Lost Without A Light, bass lines bludgeoning and guitars screeching at a punishing, moshpit-ready pace.
ARMED FOR APOCALYPSE go instrumental on Bathed In A Tepid Pool Of My Own Filth. As disgustingly metal as this track title is, evoking images of decaying bodies in a swamp of water, it’s actually a reference to the 1990s sitcom, Seinfeld. But there’s nothing humorous about these 4 and a half minutes of instrumental suffocation. Like a cloud of smoke slowly infesting your lungs as a brittle hand squeezes your heart until it slows to the same catatonic pace as Nick Harris’ drums, the penultimate track is as filthy as Nate promised. “I didn’t feel like it needed more. This is chaos, here’s the riff, here is more noise over it…We just got nasty with it and left it at that.”
A screaming melancholy in the form of guitar melodies attempts to break through in Beyond The Mirage, but is swiftly swallowed up by enraged howls, sadistic riffs and a slew of measured drum attacks. It is only as the final song, the title track, finally makes its appearance, that the mood takes a purposeful, melancholic turn into post-hardcore territory. The turbulent haze of the ten tracks before it lingers, making every raw-throated scream and soulful riff tug unexpectedly at your heartstrings and tear ducts.
You also don’t need to imagine how jarring ARMED FOR APOCALYPSE are when they sweat, blister and blast at you live, because the music video for Fists Like Feathers is a disgracefully close depiction of how much raw intensity this band are capable of; a quality CONVERGE’s Kurt Ballou also captured with unnerving crispness in every second of this album’s production. Close your eyes, lie on some gravel, and don’t get up until you feel aurally pulverised.
Rating: 8/10
The Earth Is Breathing Beneath Me is out now via Church Road Records.
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