Finland’s finest progressive death metal band is back! Barren Earth originally appeared in 2009 with the Our Twilight-EP, followed quickly by their debut album, The Curse Of The Red River (2010). Both releases met with a rapturous reception from fans and critics alike, including awards for best new band and best album. However, as all members of Barren Earth were previously known from other notable bands, there was also the inevitable labelling as a ‘supergroup’, and the accompanying doubts of ‘it will never last’ and ‘it’ll be a short-lived thing’.
But the skeptics have now been proved wrong! Following the release of the debut album, Barren Earth has played several shows, not only in its native country of Finland, but in continental Europe, and most importantly, in North America, where as a part of the Finnish Metal Tour 2, they played 28 shows alongside countrymen Ensiferum and Finntroll. This has naturally spurred the band’s creativity further, and the results of this can be heard on Barren Earth’s second album, The Devil’s Resolve, which will be released March 12th on Peaceville Records/Suburban on CD & vinyl, with artwork provided by notable US-based artist Paul Romano (Mastodon).
Mixed by Dan Swanö (Opeth/Katatonia) at Unisound, The Devil’s Resolve continues with all the trademarks one has come to associate with Barren Earth: brutal riffs, gloomy growls, majestic melodies, as well as acoustic and progressive passages. But this time the band has delved even deeper, and goes to the extremes. What was brutal on the first release is now ultra so. Likewise, what was proggy earlier is now extra so. Never a band which likes to travel on the middle of the road, Barren Earth will take you on a journey through musical landscapes encompassing brutal death metal, doomy vocals, trippy 70’s prog lunacy, pastoral passages and… bagpipes, and then returning back to full-on metal mayhem again. You better check this one out – this is as good as Finnish Metal gets.
Barren Earth recently also completed work on the video for the album track The Rains Begin.
Source: Newsletter / http://www.facebook.com/BarrenEarth
