### Earthship: Iron chest

#### 14/12/12 || Smalley

According to Metallum, Earthship is a German sludge/doom band, which is (basically) one point in their favor (German), and then two against ‘em (sorry, not a huge fan of the slower metals). Though, ‘ship isn’t really all that slow, as they have very strong hints of Mastodon influence in ‘em (and more towards the hardcore-leaning Mastodon, though there are still proggy moments here), though that can also be counted as another strike against the band, since I’m not much for that style either.

Anyway, “Iron chest” is their 2nd full-length, and the just-okay growling, awkward, Alice In Chains-lite clean vocals, and just-okay songwriting make it… just okay. There is a track here that begins with melodic, spacey, layered guitars, which does actually leave an impression but that’s about it. But, I can’t really be sure if I’m not into this cuz it just isn’t very good, or cuz I’m not into the underlying style in the first place, so choose for yourself here if you want to figure if it’s worth a listen for you; for me, it was pretty unique (since again, I’m not super-familiar with this style), but not really entertaining in the end, though I have heard worse. Again, just choose for yourself on this one.

6/10: If you’re a Mastodon fan, then track this down, I suppose.