Earth Reaper is more than just a sludgy slab of extreme metal, it’s an expansive narrative spanning forty odd minutes, as well as space and time itself.
For the uninitiated, Wallowing are an anonymous five piece from somewhere, probably not this planet judging by the harsh noisy wall you are met with when you listen to this record. Wallowing don’t just produce music, in fact they exist in order to explore a universe of their own design. They have a comic book series that Earth Reaper and their previous album Planet Loss are based off, they’ve got figurines, sci-fi styled cases for their cassette runs; to say they’re prolific creators is probably an understatement. Earth Reaper therefore doesn’t disappoint. When you craft such deep lore behind your music, you can’t help but produce something that generates something greater than just the sum of it’s parts.
‘Flesh and Steel’ comes in at three and half minutes, making it the shortest (non-transitional) track on the album. You’re immediately assaulted by huge doomy chords and harsh screamed vocals, as the narrator opens the story of a human asking who they are, after they’ve been rebuilt by androids. The riffs come thick and fast, the drumming is hectic and chaotic, both stylistically fit the theme and atmosphere perfectly for what is essentially the opening track of the album. Wallowing have created an awesome animated video to go along with the song (it’s linked below) that’s well worth a watch too.
‘Cries of Estima’ opens with a mournful dirge and slow doom laden drums. The vocals, harsh and berating as ever take on a more preacher like tone. This track has a crushing heavy atmosphere to go along with the lyrics about someone awoken to a planet wrecked and ruined.
The title track is a twenty two minute monolith that forms the second half of the album. Reverby black metal-esque vocals are the order of the day, alongside slower riffs that build to a crescendo to finish the album off. There’s even some stoner riffs and leads put in there; the descending runs give the track a sense of space, whilst calling back to early 00’s late 90’s stoner rock tracks, before dropping back into granite like chords. The spoken sections still emit the harsh bleak reality of the piece as a whole, especially when coupled with lo-fi noise that you might come to expect of a black metal album written in someone’s basement. The track sees itself out with a driving black metal riff accompanied by bluesy stoner licks and interspersed with those massive chords that are present throughout. A fitting end to a varied album.
Overall Wallowing have produced a fine piece of music here. The crushing, bleak atmosphere they manage to foster and then carry through the entirety of Earth Reaper is a no mean feat. The fact they manage to keep it up for 45 minutes is a testament to the time spent producing the album, and all the extra flourishers in there. Along side such deep lore you can’t help but think it’s a must listen album, but one of those ones where you need to make sure you’re taking in every part. Definitely one for multiple run throughs before it’s fully digested, and to put it like Wallowing themselves, “there is a lot to digest.”