Review: Arsena – Blood Rusted Mother Earth

Style: Thrash (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, Iron Maiden
Review by: Will
Country: US-MD
Release date: 9 September 2022

Blood Rusted Mother Earth is the first full-length album from Baltimore-based rockers Arsena. In Blood Rusted Mother Earth the band sets about creating a pedal-to-the-metal “genre defying” album with influences as disparate as Mastodon and Havok.

However, despite their genre-defying claims, Blood Rusted Mother Earth sounds predominantly thrash. In fact, there was some question over whether we thought it was “proggy” enough to feature on the site. The closest to progressive rock this feels like is some of Symphony X’s more thrash-infused tracks (and even that comparison feels like a bit of a stretch). Most of the time, this album is much closer aligned to Anthrax with some clear influence from Megadeth in terms of song structure (especially on tracks like ‘Pioneer’, which switches things into a more swing-beat-feel for the coda hook – which doesn’t sound a million miles from that of “Symphony of Destruction”). Arsena, for all their claims of diverse genre influences, seem to rarely leave their thrashy happy place for the duration of the album, which is disappointing and feels like a backwards step, especially given some of their (slightly) more adventurous pieces on previous albums (such as the single “Necrosis” off their previous album Dawn of the Second Sun).

Had the band had listed their main influences as Judas Priest, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Anthrax the listener may have a better idea of what they’re in for: Over the course of this hour long album, Arsena does their damndest to fill it wall to wall with as much 80’s garage thrash energy as possible. Guitar openings make an effort to sound a little like Scott Ian’s strictly downpicked “man-riffs” (especially notable on tracks like ‘Kamikaze Sun God’ where even the vocals are super Anthrax-esque). On other occasions they make a decent attempt at emulating some of the intricate, overcrowded riffs that Dave Mustane is known for. There are some fun guitar solos to be had across the album as well and it does feel like the band is having fun with the music they’re making and producing.

While the band is hopefully having a blast rocking out to their 80s thrash infused sound with the wild energy of a seventeen year old with two cans of special brew, one wonders what is left for the listener. Precious little, sadly; there just doesn’t feel like there’s anything here that’s attention grabbing or fresh enough. As always, the question you find yourself asking is “why am I listening to this when I could just play Spreading the Disease?”

Arsena fly so close to their 80s influences that the opening riff to single track ‘Seeds of the Dead’ is nigh on identical to that of Survivor’s classic ‘Eye of the Tiger’ (moving the second chord up half a step does nothing to disguise it). It’s hard to say if this has been deliberately pilfered and repurposed, or if this is a case of “subconscious plagiarism”; a trap that a multitude of thinkers, writers and musicians have fallen into, not least Byron, Neitzche and George Harrison. [Fun fact: The technical name for this is “cryptomnesia”. A word also renowned for scoring well in Scrabble.]. It’s not the only riff that sounds way too close to other music for comfort by any means, but it is the most obvious. Arsena’s ‘Tyrannicide’ has moments that are eerily close to Iron Maiden’s ‘Losfer Words (Big Orra)’, for example.

So where are we left with Blood Soaked Mother Earth? Potentially a fun album to listen through if you’re nostalgic for 80s metal but not wanting to listen to any established 80s metal bands for reasons best known to yourself (massive brain aneurysm, perhaps)? Certainly. But sadly, Arsena seem to have not lived up to their own hype with this album. Listing influences like Havok and Mastodon only sets listeners up for disappointment, like arriving at a five-star restaurant, ordering steak and then being presented with spaghetti. You may love spaghetti, but it’s always going to underwhelm if it’s advertised as fillet mignon.

It’s worth saying that this album may not be the reason to abandon hope for Arsena. On previous EPs they’ve shown some ability to innovate and make something halfways original. Here’s hoping that the band goes back to develop that interesting part of their sound for their next album.

Recommended tracks: Seeds of the Dead (if you really want to hear what Survivor would sound like as a thrash band).
You may also like: Nanga Parbat
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram |

Label: Self-Released

Arsena is:

Luke Albert- vocals, guitar
Owen Duff- drums, lyrics, triangle, synth
Robb Hollowell- lead guitar
Josh Deckman- bass, mouth harp