Electric Earth – Touching The Void

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In the intervening years between excellent 2007 EP Selling Souls and new album Touching The Void Electric Earth appear to have taken steps away from the heavy, slightly-southern-tinged hard rock they used to produce towards something wholly more alternative-mainstream. Grand Magus spring most readily to mind as another Swedish band who have recently gone through a similarly disappointing transformation (albeit more rooted in doom metal with their first two albums) and have found new success on Roadrunner Records doing it. Late ’90s/early 2000s hit-makers like Staind, Puddle of Mudd and Seether come most readily to mind during openers Amplification and Black Butterfly, which focus primarily on their radio-ready choruses. The title track suffers in the same way. They haven’t abandoned their heaviness altogether; tracks like Sugartooth, Judge Me and Free Fall still have meaty riffs, but they have more in common with the likes of recent Black Label Society and Grand Magus (especially Skinstretch) than they do Down or anything as grooving as the songs they used to write, with the same melodic alt-rock vocals as the softer tracks. When they go for influences from the classic rock sphere, like the Ian-Astbury-singing-Thin-Lizzy Need This Time, things turn out better, and closing alt-rock ballad Worries is a surprising highlight, but overall this is not the Electric Earth fans thus far will be used to. It remains to be seen whether this album simply disappoints everyone, or sees them collect a new fanbase like Grand Magus did.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2011, Albums, Alternative, Hard Rock, Quick.Play Reviews, Electric Earth