Enterprise Earth: Death, A New Beginning
Your singer leaves. There’s no original members left in the band, but you’ve just released an album that gets you comparisons to some of the biggest bands in modern metal. How do you react? In the case of ENTERPRISE EARTH, they decided not only to continue on as a group, but to double down on their massive, grandiose deathcore sound and create a record that despite it’s title and morose themes, breathes new life into not only the band, but the genre.
Travis Worland joined the band not long after the departure of Dan Watson and it wasn’t long before he’d recorded a track with the band. How did it feel to join a band seemingly in their ascendancy and what was his relationship like with the band beforehand?
“Coming into ENTERPRISE EARTH I made it a point to stay as true to my own vocal history and style as possible, there was already clean singing in previous material so expanding upon that felt natural for us all,” he says. “I toured with ENTERPRISE EARTH in my previous band AETHERE, early 2019, for the Luciferous headlining tour and remained friends with everyone until I was asked to fill in and later join. As far as my favourite tracks from previous releases, Ashamed To Be Human and Scars Of The Past are two of my most listened on Luciferous, Foundation Of Bones is a ripper, then You Couldn’t Save Me and Reanimate//Disintegrate off of The Chosen.”
We pose the question to Travis of what it means to join the band on a creative level and if he felt any pressure. “I would say that I didn’t feel any pressure at all, frankly,” he admits. “I try my hardest just to be myself when it comes to my artistic output and knew that the music would speak for itself as far as a continuation of the band from The Chosen to now, and my job as the vocalist is to emphasize the songs in whatever way I feel appropriate. I enjoyed all of the writing we did and have always been confident in the quality of the product we have been creating for everyone.”
The record itself, Death: An Anthology, combines a myriad of influences from the more traditional deathcore bands, to more eccentric fare such as MESHUGGAH and particularly OPETH, a band that guitarist Gabe [Mangold] was more than happy to let influence his work, alongside guest appearances from some big names in modern heavy music.
“OPETH is always a steady influence on me,” Gabe says. “Watershed is one of my favourite records of all time and was extremely important to my development as a young musician. It made me realise you can write these crazy long and progressive songs but still make them flow and be fun. Any time we have a longer song I do my best to keep those things in mind while writing. The song should tell a story and (hopefully) not feel like it’s dragging.”
“When we started writing I brought up wanting to have several guests on the record,” he expands. “Ben Duerr and Darius Tehrani are good friends of mine, so having both of them on the album was an early discussion that we all had. Ben’s guest spot was unique in the way that I asked him to write his own lyrics for King Of Ruination and what he delivered took it to the next level. Darius’ part on The Reaper’s Servant was the true finishing touch on the song that really glued it all together for me and I loved having him on a section that wasn’t your typical ‘deathcore breakdown guest vocal’ trope. Having him in the music video was also a huge plus and we loved working together on it!”
Travis adds, “Matt Heafy and I talked about him featuring on the album after meeting and hanging out on the FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY US tour we did in January of 2022, and it’s surreal to me having someone I listened to as a very young teenager screaming lyrics I wrote over 10 years later. Now with Wes Hauch, we knew we wanted a guest solo and it was an instant unanimous vote to ask him to lend us his talents. Malevolent Force had the perfect section for him to shred over and I have listened to that solo at least 30 times since we finished the record.”
With a name like Death: An Anthology, you know what you’re getting into, and for the most part, the lyrical content is what you’d expect, but beautifully executed. When asked about the concept of the record and it’s main themes, Travis had this to say about the records lyrical content, and how he brought more narrative elements into the bands more epic tracks.
“Morose and sombre are definitely words I would use to describe the lyrical concepts! Acceptance is involved, of course, but more in the way of death and its inevitability than giving it any truly positive attributes. I love storytelling and fiction so a bit of the material leans towards a more unrealistic side on the topic, with songs like The Reaper’s Servant, I, Divine and Curse Of Flesh moving away from talking about death in a sort of ‘cut and dried’ fashion and allowing myself the space to have fun writing songs that people can enjoy for what they are and glean any deeper meaning on their own, outside of whatever philosophical ideology I’ve injected into them.”
While their previous record drew comparisons to bands like TRIVIUM, the more chaotic production on this will no doubt see it compared to peers more firmly in the deathcore realm, specifically those bands who seem to be cracking the glass ceiling of the genre. Talking about their position as a band within the scene, Travis says, “we’re just ENTERPRISE EARTH, a metal band. I think bands like us, LORNA SHORE, WHITECHAPEL, HUMANITY’S LAST BREATH, etc. aren’t able to be fully contained in the ‘deathcore’ genre. We all have deathcore roots and parts, but we also all like to be multidimensional. I’m very eager to see where the genre goes as it continues to become an all encompassing style of music!”
Death: An Anthology is out now via MNRK Heavy.
Like ENTERPRISE EARTH on Facebook.