Earth Rot are a four piece death/black metal band from Perth, Western Australia. WA have always produced some really great bands and Earth Rot are no exception.
Earth Rot don’t pull any punches they play a face tearing, brutally great style of Death/black metal and have been ripping it up through Australia, Asia and Europe the
last few years building a solid reputation as a premier metal act.
Earth Rot’s debut release was an Ep Dirt it has four tracks and was brought out in 2014 is a strong first outing one of my
favourite tracks off this is The Power In Blood.
This Ep was quickly followed up by their first full length Follow The Black Smoke
This an extremely good album from the first track Frostitute to the last in Oblivion this is ten tracks of black metal brutality.
The next release from Earth Rot was the Ep Chthonian Virtues it was released 2016 and has five tracks with a killer cover of Silverchair’s Slave.
Which brings me to the latest release from Earth Rot Renascentia this is an amazing listen and sits up with some of the best death/black metal albums I’ve heard.
This album shows how musically intellegent this band is, anyone that can put a saxophone in the middle of a black metal album and make it work so damn well just WOW.
The first time I heard this album it blew my mind my horns go up to Earth Rot and look forward to what the future brings for Earth Rot. \m/Interview below track \m/
CRANNK’s Interview with Colin from Earth Rot:
Crannk (Jai):Can you give us a little background on Earth Rot when did you form? And how did Earth Rot come about?
Earth Rot(Colin): A little over four years ago, a bunch of old friends and previous band members starting something purely to have some fun playing heavy tunes. As we started touring more, figuring out exactly what we wanted to play, members moved around and the band as you see today has been rock solid for almost two years!
So how would you describe Earth Rot’s sound?And what are some of the bands that have helped influence you guys and Earth Rot’s sound?
This is always an interesting question as people seem to hear what they want to hear within our sound – we’ve been told that we’ve clearly listened to a lot of Edge of Sanity, Dissection and Deicide, none of which is true. Obviously using a HM-2 guitar tone invites a lot of comparisons to Entombed, Grave, Dismember and the rest of the Stockholm 90s DM scene, but I wouldn’t really say we write many riffs in that vein.
I guess really what we’re doing is something straddling black and death metal with occasional elements of whatever we think fits. Metal-wise we’re probably most influenced by the stuff we grew up listening to in the mid 2000s, which is a lot of early Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, Bloodbath etc. I personally have been pretty stoked lately with Anaal Nathrakh, Ulcerate and this whole atmospheric black metal thing that’s popular at the moment, but I guess look out for a forthcoming Earth Rot release for riffs in those styles…
CRANNK: You played support for Fleshgod Apocalypse on their recent Oz tour and about to head off to Japan to support them over there with fellow aussies Psycroptic and Deadspace you guys must be looking forward to it ?What’s it like playing over there< Cause you were over there last year with Vader right?
Yeah we were over with Vader about this time last year, and Shining/Marduk the year before that. Japan is fucking mental, it’s an amazing place to be and an amazing place to play shows. The crowds there certainly appreciate the cheesy and theatrical aspects of metal much more than back home so we do try to ham it up as much as possible on stage – there are a lot of horns being thrown, high kicks, flinging guitars around and other dumb idiot stage moves like yelling “SUGOIIIII” as loud as possible before every solo. Also it remains the only place where I’ve received goodie bags containing local snack food from an audience member AND those of us that have been back multiple times were gifted a little packet of photos printed out from the previous tour – the rest of the world’s audiences need to step up their game IMO.
CRANNK: You’ve also played Europe what was that run of shows like ? And you plan on getting back over Europe way?
We’ve been fortunate to do a couple of European runs so far and to be honest, in a nightliner bus it’s easy mode touring – loads of food, loads of beer and loads of chances to get decent sleep. Germany, Hungary and (perhaps unsurprisingly) Scandinavia have been full of great shows for us, the crowds got on board with our sound pretty well there, particularly on this last Gorgoroth/Melechesh run. We’re obviously always keen to go back but we’ll see what 2018 holds in that regard.
CRANNK: Earth Rot’s played Europe, Asia where else would you guys like to play that you haven’t been to yet?
I mean, we’d like to play everywhere eventually, but USA and Canada are the big ones we’re yet to reach. It’d be sweet to get back to the UK as well – Camden Underworld is one of my bucket list venues to play. In Europe we’re still yet to make it to Norway or Finland and a bit more of Sweden, being the home of a bunch of bands that influenced our sound hugely they’d be great to tick off the list!
CRANNK: So you’re just finishing up a run of shows around Australia having also played The New Dead and whole bunch of other shows, How do you think the metal scens is going here in Australia at the moment?
And how it important is it to bands like you for us fans to support the local scene and these mini festivals popping up loaded with killer Aussie talent?
Earth Rot(Col): Honestly I have no idea how the scene is going, it’s almost always been the case that droves of people will come out to see international headliners while attendance for a purely Australian lineup depends on a LOT of different factors. We’ve been fortunate to be able to play shows and become friends with a bunch of sick Aussie bands (namedrop time: Blackhelm, Hadal Maw, Hollow World, Whoretopsy, Départe, No Haven, Hybrid Nightmares, Kyzer Soze, Descent, Alkira, Truth Corroded, Sanzu and countless others) but whether the Aussie scene in general is waxing or waning I really couldn’t say.
It does seem like metal bands are becoming more and more aware that they need to tour as much as they can, for the experience and for the exposure – I say this based on coming up in the Perth metal scene which was very strong from 2005 – 2010 or so but quickly tanked after that, as very few of the bands built their audience outside Perth and of course the younger kids coming up got into deathcore/metalcore which was largely rejected by the older metalheads.
I’m certainly a fan of mini festivals, the success of New Dead Fest is a testament to the amount of hard work Jason and his crew have put into it. Playing with international headliners really is hugely important for Australian bands to build their audience at home so it’s great to be invited to play these fests. I honestly would love to see a touring Australian act supporting every tour – if everyone invested in the local acts, I think we’d see more growth in local shows.
CRANNK: I just want to say that Renascentia is up there as one of my fave releases this year, But i have to ask about your shortest track on the album and the one with the most hits on Spotify,The Bones That Lay Beneath The Earth that sax sits so damn well in that track can you tell us abit about that track and how it come about?
Earth Rot(Col): Thanks dude, yeah that’s one of my favourite bits on the album too! One of the things I’ve learned from being in this band is that you get nothing if you don’t ask for it – we approached Jørgen to see if he’d be interested in making a guest appearance and he was keen to do so. He sent us a couple of different solos and we opted for this one as it was the most ‘out there’.
CRANNK: So Earth Rot have been flat out busy the last few years what does the future hold for you guys at this stage?
Earth Rot (Col): 2017 has seen a bunch of touring in support of Renascentia so we’re going to take a some time off shows to work on some new tunes, piece together our next release, get artwork sorted etc.
We have a habit of smashing out writing/recording/mix/art/master in a ridiculously short space of time so we’re going to challenge ourselves to plan things out and pace ourselves. We’ll see if that renders some fresh results for the next album.
http://earthrot.com.au/ Earth Rot Home page for Merch
https://www.facebook.com/EarthRotband Earth Rot Facebook
EARTH ROT are Jared Bridgeman Vocals/bass
Colin Dickie Guitar
D.J Maloney Drums
Tom WaterhouseGuitar/backing vocals
Feature and Interview By Jai CRANNK……….\m/
