Style: Progressive Metal, Symphonic Death Metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Psycroptic, Slugdge
Review by: Cooper
Country: Florida, United States
Release date: 4 November, 2022
Featuring mythical artwork, a dizzying space opera concept, and a symphonic infused progressive death metal sound, Earth Base One, the debut release from the Florida-based Tiwanaku, is an album that – at least on paper – I should love. Unfortunately, for every positive that Tiwanaku incorporates into this album, countless negatives slip in as well.
Earth Base One begins in stride with “Visitor from Titan,” a six minute song that demonstrates everything that Tiwanaku is able to do well. Riffs change up on a dime in a way that at first feels disorienting but becomes satisfying as the song repeats its strophic structure. Synthesized choir and strings provide a strong foundation and bring a sense of melody to the slightly monotonous vocals, and in typical death metal fashion, the drums blast away, never drawing much attention at all, be it good or bad. The standout element of “Visitor from Titan” is undoubtedly the lead guitar work. By shrugging off the trend of perfectly compressed, clipped, and quantized lead work that is all too often employed in the genre, Tiwanaku’s lead guitar provides a real sense of grit that recalls death metal of the nineties more than it does anything released in the past fifteen years.
The second track, “Ghost War,” follows suit, making use of many of the same stylistic choices off “Visitor from Titan.” Here, though, they begin to seem less like intentionally made songwriting choices and more like symptoms of a lack of ideas. For instance, riffs and song segments still transition between another in a disorienting manner, but that disorientation never pays off as it did in the album’s opener. Once again, the lead guitar shredding is fun and engaging, but it is now forced to compete with the other instruments in order to even be heard thanks to muddy production. Despite all its missteps, “Ghost War” still lands as one of the better tracks off of Earth Base One, a dark omen of what’s to come.
“Swarm” is the third track from Earth Base One, but you certainly wouldn’t have known that had you listened to it. In fact, when I first heard “Swarm,” I thought that my music player had somehow begun shuffling and that I was now listening to a completely different band. Nearly every aspect of the song’s sound – production, riffing style, and vocals – is completely different from the previous tracks, and these changes are not for the better. Where “Visitor from Titan” employed a production style that, while certainly not amazing, served the song with its grittiness, “Swarm” sounds like it was taken straight from a demo recording. At one point, I swear I can even hear where an audio file was copied and pasted into the DAW during production. For an album that was already on my bad side, this became a killing blow to my enjoyment, and I became much more nitpicky about the entire album.
For instance, “Nightmare Hell” would have been decent if they had cut down the nearly three minutes of ambience to thirty seconds and if they had recorded to a metronome. “Closed Minds” is probably the best song on the album thanks to its groovy synth use, but it squanders much of my enjoyment thanks to a double tracked solo that ends up just sounding out of tune and an ending that I can only describe as lazy. “Vision Abducted” is also one of the better tracks on this album, but is really just a collection of riffs as opposed to a song. Whenever Earth Base One offers something of promise, it never lasts more than a moment and whatever follows seems even worse by comparison.
The final track, depending on which music service you are listening on, is a piano solo. “Falling Stars” is a genuinely interesting and engaging piece of music, but I can’t help but see it as anything other than perplexing. Why would Tiwanaku choose to include a piano solo with showmanship that overshadows anything that happened on the album previously? Ultimately, it leaves me unsatisfied. Even worse, if you were listening on Bandcamp, there is still one more song, “Interdimensional.” I do not want to spoil the genre change that occurs with this song, so I find myself in a conundrum. I recommend you listen to this album on Bandcamp if only to experience the sheer comedy that is “Interdimensional” after the album that precedes it. Despite the shocking nature of the album’s true closer, I only resent the album more because I now find myself actually recommending this atrocity, even if it is only as comedic relief.
Recommended tracks: Visitor From Titan, Closed Minds
You may also like: Dvota, Deathbringer
Final verdict: 4/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Unorthodox Emanations of Avantgarde Music – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook
Tiwanaku is:
– Ed Mowery (vocals, guitars)
– Sean Hairy Valentine (lead guitars)
– Ian Spencer (bass)
– Gabriel Lewandowski (drums)
– Ryan ONeill (keyboard)
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