<p>- I’ve been a huge fan of the fusion approach that has overtaken black metal in the last decade. Adding in ambient, psych, shoegaze, prog, all sorts of things, really, bands like <strong>Deafheaven</strong>, <strong>Alcest </strong>or <strong>Wolves In The Throneroom </strong>have tricked out the original, bargain-basement-evil sounds of Norway with lavish adornments from across the musical spectrum. So, Perth’s Earth Rot <em>are</em> a black metal fusion band, but then they aren’t really like that at all. </p>
<p>Their steadily prolific outfit -on top of multiple EPs, the band’s latest full-length, <em>Black Tides Of Obscurity</em> is their third LP since they formed back in 2014- has also been a mission to find the sweet spot between that darkest of Norwegian thunder and Sweden’s signature death metal. Unlike the much more obvious fusions that I’ve mentioned, most folks who aren’t intimately familiar with the borders of metal subgenres would almost certainly have difficulty telling those two sounds apart. </p>
<p>There are plenty who do know the difference, however, and Earth Rot’s obsessive attention to the details of their craft -not to mention their draconian touring schedule- have earned them plenty of ardour in lands that produce obsessive metal fans. This must go some way to explaining why they’ve toured Japan multiple times in recent years, though -as far as I know- they’ve yet to hit the shores of America. </p>
<p>The new record, their first for metal mainstays Season Of Mist, provides ample evidence of just how good they’ve got at this furiously heavy, roaringly fast and impeccably tight hybrid craft they practice. In approaching <em>Black Tides Of Obscurity</em> I must admit I was a bit misled. My first taste was advance cut and album opener, <em>Dread Rebirth</em>. It’s every bit as heavy and moves at the same hell-for-leather speed as other parts of the record, but it also features a psych blues intro and bridge, which as a (you probably guessed) fusion tragic, had a magnetic pull for me. The blues is only really there to bookend the album, as you’ll hear in the swamp-blues closer <em>Out In The Cold. </em>The penchant for pace pushes other parts of the record into other genres like grindcore and thrash, but the majority of the record maintains a steely focus on blackened death, or, as some folk have neurotically preferred, deathened black metal which has reached a level of skill that is only matched by its brutality. </p>
<p>Working in a style where its hard to escape being measured by the yardstick of its storied history of practitioners, it’s been interesting to note that other listeners to <em>Black Tides Of Obscurity </em>have heard echoes of an extremely wide variety of many of the death or black metal bands out there. I suppose a good way to think of that is to say that Earth Rot have an expansive knowledge of the field in which they work and they put it to intensive use.</p>
<p>In the last instance, this is an excellent record, though in its obsessive focus on the elements of its craft, it’s likely to please those deeply ingrained in metal minutiae, more than dabblers. Those former are the ones that Earth Rot are here for anyway. After a 2017 tour to Japan the band’s <strong>Colin Dickie </strong>was quoted as saying that Japanese audiences were the best, just more into the work of fandom than any other and that the rest of the world needed to ‘step it up’. I think Earth Rot only expect as much effort from their listeners as they bring to the music themselves; are you prepared to go that hard?</p>
<p>- Chris Cobcroft.</p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2302287483/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="http://earthrot.com.au/album/black-tides-of-obscurity">Black Tides Of Obscurity by Earth Rot</a></iframe>