Review Summary: Burn me alive, I won't feel a thing.
So… Emo Black Metal. That’s a thing now. Accept it. I did. Don’t tune out just yet. Give it a chance. It isn’t a whiny, pretentious wankery you fear it is. Well, it is, but it isn’t… okay, *** it. Listen, this is a fantastic genre fusion. It is a crushing, dizzying and vigorous experience. Feels weird to admit it… Emo Black Metal, still doesn’t seem plausible.
Now, don’t really be all too excited to hear that fusion in place. The album doesn’t really stray too far away from your own traditional atmospheric Black Metal. Outside of the often slower, gloomier echoic parts, it is all quite a standard affair. But the band manages to bring on a particular kind of song-writing, that thrilling oomph that just makes it all so Emo-like.
It is interesting to see how with all of those almost ambient, weary interludes and intros the album doesn’t feel like a drag. They are slow. Extremely slow. In spite of having a great punch to them, they are motionless. But they feel appropriate. It isn’t rage they display; it isn’t the sorrow or the bitterness. It is just pure giving up. The heartache is so great that there is nothing you can do about it but sit and observe. And so you do.
Now is about the most appropriate time to mention that the incredibly ravaging emotions the album evokes wouldn’t have been possible without the surprisingly grandiose production and the instrumental violence. The echoes, the near-shoegaze play and the immensely intricate drums mixing; those are things this album excels at.
Not for a single moment does it seem like the countless slow-downs, which seem like they should take away from the momentum set up by the more hard hitting moments, are actually ruining anything. They are appropriate for the moments they are placed in. They are just another rendition of the pure senses-beatdown presented all throughout the record.
I doubted the possibility of merging Black Metal and Emo (or Screamo, that’d be more appropriate) being anything near likeable, but Earth Moves have proven my scepticism to be baseless. It is absolutely staggering and skinning. It is The Truth in Our Bodies.
