ALBUM REVIEW: The Earth Will Swallow The Sun – Noisepicker
NOISEPICKER is the brainchild of Harry Armstrong, an unfathomably prolific musician whose nucleotides are woven into the very DNA of the UK’s alternative music scene. Harry’s body of work includes recorded output with the likes of death metal pioneers DECOPOSITION, doom metallers END OF LEVEL BOSS, jazz rockers THE EARLS OF MARS, hard rocking fan favourites BLIND RIVER, and most recently as the bass player of stoner stalwarts ORANGE GOBLIN. The list goes on.
With drummer Kieran Murphy in tow, NOISEPICKER serves as an outlet for Armstrong to pull together his vastly expansive musical tastes and plethora of ideas and channel them into something uniquely his own. Written and recorded in Armstrong’s practice room and mixed by his own hand in his kitchen, The Earth Will Swallow The Sun a truly DIY affair, a rough and ready barrage of riffs and ideas that blends elements of blues, metal, punk and noise rock, with more surprises in its 33 minute run time than some bands manage in their entire careers.
The first of many surprises comes with the very opening notes; who would have thought an album billed as boisterous noise rock would open with a haunting, clean guitar chords interspersed with almost uncomfortably long gaps of silence? The next comes in the form of Armstrong’s voice. Those familiar with his vocal work in BLIND RIVER will be used to his high pitched, bombastic hard rock rasp, but on What You Deserve and in fact the majority of the songs on The Earth Will Swallow The Sun, he’s opted for a gravel throated, Lanagan-esque baritone, with touches of latter-day Alex Turner in his forceful enunciation. The upfront vocal mix makes it sound like he’s whispering each word in your ear, and you can almost feel his hot breath on the back of your neck. Droning e-bowed guitars are layered with the evil blues chords and darkly poetic vocals in SWANS-like fashion to round off this cinematic opener.
The pace is switched up immediately after with a the stomping, HELMET-worshipping riff of Chew, this time Armstrong injecting more phlegm and bile into his vocal delivery, and sounding absolutely savage. On Tomorrow Lied The Devil however, he takes this a little too far as he growls “Listen to ME now!” and he comes across like someone trying far too hard to sound “evil” and ending up just a bit naff and inauthentic. Other than the brilliant line “Sorry to piss on your chips mate but the race has already been won” it’s one of the album’s biggest mis-steps. Thankfully redemption is achieved with the moody alt-rock of Leave Me The Name.
One of the album’s biggest surprises comes half way through What Did You Think Was Going To Happen, it’s very title hinting at something unpredictable. After a verse of Armstrong channeling his inner Peter Steele and crooning about drinking himself naked and getting high, it’s as if he turns and looks directly at the listener to sing “it’s all been done before, I could use something new to try.” Then everything stops and Murphy brings in a boom-bap hip hop drum beat replete with reversed snares and a healthy dollop of attitude. Then as if to taunt the listener, Armstrong spends the rest of the song crooning “What did you think was going to happen?” Certainly not that.
The second half of the album has some truly promising moments, such as atmospheric doom of The End of the Beginning, where Armstrong puts his Tom Waits impression to rest and shows us what his voice is really capable of, serving high pitched wails reminiscent of Devin Townsend’s Kingdom. Then there’s Start The Flood, which sounds like it could be a lost track from Load/Reload era METALLICA with it’s muscular, juddering riffage and infectious metal grooves. The feverish atmosphere of these tracks reach a peak with the bonkers title track which couples a tribal drum beat with repeated refrains of “The earth will swallow the sun!” and demented hoots and hollers that make it sound like the track was recorded at an ayahuasca retreat gone wrong. After such an intense trip, the comedown comes in the form of the final two tracks, Lorrain In Blood and Lunatics, a pair of foggy, alt-blues slow jams that serve as a smoky, whiskey soaked morning after to the hedonistic narcotics binge that’s just preceded them.
While there’s certainly some charm to be gleaned from the DIY, rough around the edges approach to making records, it is apparent that NOISEPICKER could have benefitted from enlisting the expertise, or at least a second opinion, of some of the world renowned producers and engineers Armstrong has in his contact list. The whole thing just feels a little slapdashed together and at times the mix is all over the place, the drums especially becoming lost under the layers of guitar and vocals in the busier moments. It begs the question of what this record could have sounded like if it was mixed anywhere else but in a kitchen, or if just a little more time had been taken to refine the songs. The seeds of plenty of great ideas are sewn but they often fail to yield fully satisfying fruits.
Yes, this is a side project for an admittedly capable pair of musicians but it comes across this way in the final product. With one of Armstrong’s main projects calling it day recently, here’s to hoping that future NOISEPICKER output gets the main project treatment.
Rating: 6/10
The Earth Will Swallow The Sun is out now via Exile On Mainstream.
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