A voice joins the weight: Review of “Beneath A Sky That Breaks” from Blood Of The Earth

From the first note, I was under the impression that I was about to review a great EP.

Blood Of The Earth was founded by married duo Jeff Golden, formerly of Crowbar, and Katie Golden, formerly of The Convalescence. Jeff has said they met on tour, when Katie’s band at the time was supporting Six Feet Under in Europe in December 2019. Their 2024 debut EP, “…And The Pillars Shook”, was entirely instrumental, so “Beneath A Sky That Breaks”, out on 23 October, is the first time they’ve worked with a vocalist: J. Costa, of Thy Will Be Done.

The title track is as sweet as it is brutal, with guitar echoes in the back that almost sound like a nature cry or a siren. I’d never listened to the band before, so the cover was my first impression: an impaled bull skull in a grey landscape, which had me imagining a completely new sound. Paired with that image, the siren and the weight of the track built a different expectation of the overall sound for me.

“The Constellation” then brings in a female voice across a colourful song that already holds so many details to catch. To my surprise, it also goes heavier than I anticipated, beyond sludge and doom.

“Barren Oasis” moves towards a more familiar sound, and it reminds me of some other bands in the genre such as Neurosis or Amenra. Still, the production choices from Ryan Boesch (Melvins, Whores), with the heavy tones sitting higher than anything else, give it a distinct mark. And just when you think “oh, that’s a classic”, a piano and a guitar solo come in to disrupt that belief.

By this point I didn’t know what to expect anymore, and the overlapping voices on “Petrichor” got me thinking of more of a post-metal feel. Then comes “Filth Pig”, a cover of the Ministry song from their 1996 album of the same name. The guitar work loops back to where the EP began, while the keyboards take us back to some proto-metal ground.

I understand the choice to experiment with the voice, since it’s a much newer thing for a band that has focused on instrumental work until now. What I love is that the instruments take precedence, and the voice feels almost like an addition to an already good composition.

Overall, the EP is a continuous loop of sound exploration that feels researched and not casual at all. It might feel disorientating, but I personally felt that the heavier moments and the details of some of the tracks landed in just the right place. The first track, “Beneath A Sky That Breaks”, is the one that stuck with me the most. The EP left me looking for more, almost as if it were a teaser, and wanting to keep listening in case I had missed some details.

Tracklist

1. Beneath A Sky That Breaks
2. The Constellation
3. Barren Oasis
4. Petrichor
5. Filth Pig