Review Summary: Symphonic black-metal fun with science
I Shall Move the Earth call themselves “Stargazing Black-metal” for some reason and that is, as you might have already guessed, complete piffle. I have also noticed the tag avant-garde being used to describe this band which is also a big lie. I’m making these things clear to begin with so that no one listens to them, expecting something that hasn’t been done before. This has been done before, oh yes. This is straightforward symphonic black metal that brings the epincess and the riffs, nothing more, nothing less. That is of course nothing bad; it’s actually on the contrary (almost). While heavily resembling bands like Dimmu Borgir in the way the songs are written, I Shall Move The Earth have defined their own sound largely due to the stellar (no pun intended) keyboard and electronic performance. The atmosphere differs a bit from other black metal releases since I Shall Move The Earth focuses more on science as theme which gives Blueprints MMXIII a steampunk-ish feeling. The production is solid overall for an unsigned release but it’s still quite dull and lacks impact. If you have heard Enthrone Darkness Triumphant by Dimmu Borgir you have basically already heard this but without the Satan which is here replaced by nerds. Nice!
The vocals are your usual black metal raspy screams and some choir like vocal arrangements which are a good idea and could of course work but Shall Move The Earth sort of failed with this one. It’s quite a basic thing to do in symphonic black metal but they are simply not really done that well here for some reason. They are just very “meh”. The album also lacks guitar solos, which is dumb.
I Shall Move the Earth’s debut EP Blueprints MMXIII is a good start for the band but it really brings nothing new to the table. That is, as I stated above, nothing bad but they need to make advancements in their sound to gain larger success.
