January 30th, 2024
Diseased Earth
'Welcome The Plague Years'
Diseased Earth are a ferocious four-piece death sludge band hailing from the raw and riff-raging depths of Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Since 2014, these metal alchemists have been concocting a potent brew of groovy doom laden death metal riffs within the sludge metal genre yet expand out to more than just that.
Their concoctions so powerful could they in fact raise the dead? Then feast your ears on this album to find out!
A heavy groovy riff laden fest starts off the album in the form of 'Coven Of Leeches' with hints
towards doom metal in it's traditional form but conjures up a nice blend of death and sludge metal. Crank up the attitude to eleven, folks!
A more punkish approach comes with 'Upon The Funeral Pyre' - It's like the undead rising to throw down in a mosh pit. And 'The Slugs Throne' has plenty of pinch harmonics and triplet feel riffs to keep your head nodding and nodding. These guys are really metal hypnotists at work here, folks, no doubt about it.
'In A Deathless Light' has a great introduction with a doomish sludge riff that the band 'Down' would have loved to have come up with themselves. The song picks up halfway through the minute mark and adds more and more groove as you go along and ends with some cool vocals and a great solo. The lead tone is sublime and the solo itself just shreds harder than a chainsaw at a lumberjack convention.
The album is a collection of single they released during the pandemic, so you can excuse the shift in production values 4 tracks in.
'New Jack Cocaine Binge' gets the frantic drug filled party started with it's head pulsating riffs and the vocals are deep and meanacing. This track bites with a venom that'll leave you reeling.
The drums are really showcased on the 6th track 'Tearing The Heaven's Asunder' and the bass compliments with some nice runs and licks throughout without always siding with the guitar notes which is great to hear and keeps the tracks going with something else to pin your ears on every time you listen you can catch something new.
'The Swamp Witch' ends the album with a very cool, dare I say Kyuss type intro riff. It features some nice dual type lead guitar runs and riffs that bend and twist you into metal stoner sludge oblivion.
Have a listen to the album below ->
Diseased Earth's "Welcome The Plague Years" is a riff-packed rollercoaster through the underworld of metal. Several nods to Pantera/Corrosion of Conformity and Acid Bath should excite many sludge/groove/doom metal fans a like.
It's an invitation to a headbanging feast where the menu is all heavy swampy sludge goodness. Miss this at your own peril.
Check 'em out on bandcamp ->