About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

An upbeat combination of doom/ death metal similar to Opeth, Amorphis, and ‘70s era progressive rock.



Pros

• A mature work from a supergroup composed of Finnish scene veterans.
• Dynamic and interesting upbeat songs.
• Stellar musicianship.

Cons

• The similarities to Opeth are undeniable; hence, the music does have a copycat quality of sorts.

Description

• Released March 31st, 2010, on Peaceville Records.

• Made up of members from bands such as Swallow The Sun, Amorphis, and German thrash giants Kreator.
• Mixed and mastered by Dan Swanö.

Guide Review - Barren Earth - 'Curse Of The Red River'

Curse of the Red River is the debut full-length from Finnish supergroup Barren Earth. Composed of scene veterans from many well-known acts, Barren Earth come across as upbeat version of Opeth and similar acts with progressive flourishes that hark back to the arena rock acts of the 1970s.

The similarities to Opeth and such are undeniable. Barren Earth begin with a doom/ death metal base with lots of riffs, a mid paced tempo, and rough vocals from Swallow The Sun vocalist Mikko Kotomäki. Pretty obviously drawing from Opeth’s playbook, Kotomäki’s also periodically segues into clean vocals very similar to those of Mikael Åkerfeldt.

However, Barren Earth diverges from Opeth in a couple of respects. First, the music is a bit more upbeat and doesn’t quite have that feeling of melancholy that Opeth relies upon. Second, there are some really nice flourishes of progressive rock present on Curse of the Red River with woodwinds, plenty of acoustic guitars, melodic solos, and wonderfully placed keyboards.

Although not blatant, I do detect the presence of arena rock bands from yesteryear, such as Yes, within the music of Barren Earth.

Finally, Barren Earth are able to stand on their own with simply some very good songwriting on Curse of the Red River. Songs are varied, engaging, and are able to weave together harsh (there are even a couple of instances of near blasts) and melodic elements together in a cohesive manner.

As far as melodic progressive metal goes, Barren Earth are a nice addition to the genre and would be well appreciated by fans of Opeth, Amorphis, and related bands.



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