Earache Records

"You've got to have a reason to be on Earache," label founder Digby Pearson told me in 1996. "It has to be uncompromising, and fuckin' blow people's minds basically." I was involved in an Earache Record's special on Wellington's Radio Active, and had hurriedly organised an interview with Pearson an hour before going to air.

This was impressive as most bosses of his stature would have been inaccessible, bloated on ego and the trappings of success. Not Pearson though. He happily talked about his label amidst a barrage of the best music he had released over the previous decade, including Napalm Death, Godflesh, Scorn, Carcass, Morbid Angel, Fudge Tunnel and Entombed.

Pearson started Earache in his Nottingham, England bedroom in 1986, having come up through hardcore punk as a promoter and writer. His first few releases for Napalm Death, Heresy and Carcass filled a gap in the burgeoning extreme music market, and the label took off. Until the late 1990s the Earache catalogue featured many of the most groundbreaking extreme heavy acts on the planet, only rivalled by the likes of Relapse, Roadrunner and Music for Nations.

The Earache stable defined grindcore (Napalm Death, Anal Cunt), industrial metal (Godflesh, Pitchshifter), doom metal (Cathedral, Sleep), and death (Carcass, Entombed). But Pearson’s progressive A&R policy saw all manner of anomalies represented on the label.

Amongst these were the dark ambient dub of ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris (Scorn), the dub-metal crossover of Dub War, the weird metal/electronics of New York's OLD, and in the mid-nineties a few of the nastiest gabba artists (Ultraviolence, DOA, Extreme Noise Terror).

This policy of signing the newest, most extreme acts kept the label vital. When this ceased to the case, and long standing disputes saw the departure of some of their oldest acts, Earache's star began to dim. For the last few years they've been off the radar, but a stable of new artists has injected new life into the once unstoppable label.

Foremost amongst these is Cult of Luna, hailing from Umea in the north of Sweden - the same town to spawn Meshuggah and Refused. This six piece pride themselves on their individuality and the pursuit of a unique sound. That said, they are reminiscent of Australia's Alchemist, due mainly to their dense structures and overtly psychotropic vibe.

This is enhanced by the use of keyboards and samples, deepening the sonic palette. Having grown out of the hardcore act Eclipse, vocalist Klas Rydberg and guitarist Johannes Persson pursued a darker, more cathartic experience, releasing their first album in 2001, and then a 7" on Hydra Head Records in early 2002. Consequently they signed to Earache, and released their first album The Beyond in 2003.

Now they've released Salvation, and it's a classic in the making. First track 'Echoes' steals its title and introduction from Pink Floyd, but it is a poison chalice. At five minutes the heavy guitars enter, and the idyllic aural landscape is shattered forever. Here on in it's an intense journey that weaves and winds through the chasms of the mind attempting to reach that state that the album title alludes to.

Like Neurosis these boys know a thing or two about the implementation of extreme dynamics. Giving themselves the space to explore these extremes within a song can make for a gruelling experience, but that's no bad thing. This Cult of Luna is one to join for sure.

Another of the Earache stable is Mortiis, an 'artistic creation' from Norway who has assumed the persona of a troll-like character. Another who is all for individuality, Mortiis says, "People make presumptuous comments and conclusions about me, when they've never even talked to me. See I'm really strong against prejudice and I don't see how people can judge people they don't know".

While his image may be the logical extension of the Alice Cooper/Marilyn Manson paradigm, Mortiis’ The Grudge is something else. Drawing on Skinny Puppy, NIN and extreme ambience, his is a bleak and misanthropic outlook, and all the more captivating for it. This is where the image/substance interface becomes blurred, the two totally inseparable, like Bowie circa Ziggy Stardust, the aforementioned Cooper and Manson, or any number of corpse painted black metallers. The music is interesting, though somewhat caught in the Skinny Puppy mould.

Then there’s Insision (sic). This Swedish act determines that “Foul smelling and festering, death metal should always provoke revulsion in the sane.” Fair enough. After all, the genre has always walked the boundaries of sanity, inciting controversy. It is incongruous that it should become acceptable. Insision revisit the spirit of the genre’s pioneers on their Revealed and Worshipped album. They claim to have discarded melody, yet their riffs hook into your subconscious and refuse to let go. The dual guitar work is impressive to say the least, while those death fundamentals blastbeats and feral growled vocals are present and correct.

Earache is back in capable hands then, after a few years in the wilderness. And Pearson’s dictum about blowing minds still stands.


5 albums:
Shadows Fall – The War Within (Century Media)
Atreyu – The Curse (Victory Records)
Bob Dylan – Chronicles read by Sean Penn (Simon & Schuster)
Studio One – Dub (Soul Jazz)
East Flatbush Project – Tried by 12 (Ninja Tunes)

Classic:
Faith No More – The Real Thing (Slash)