‘Taming Of The Demons’, ‘Vampire Circus’ and now ‘Something Wicked’: if you can’t see a red thread through those EARTHRIDE album’s titles, then you clearly have no clues what’s going on their vocalist and gravel-sounding Dave Sherman’s mind… But let’s take it from the top shall we?
If at first EARTHRIDE appeared like some kind of doom rock ‘supergroup’ that saw former WRETCHED and not yet by then ex-SPIRIT CARAVAN teaming up in 1997 with INTERNAL VOID’s drummer Eric Little, even underneath the surface of their rockin’ first 2000 self-titled four tracks’ EP already lied a darkness on its own, as exampled by “Weak End” prophetic lyrics: “Pull the trigger if that’s what you think/It won’t mean nothing to that your fucking weak/Doomed vision forever death in your eyes”. Far more than just your average slab of Sabbath groove and Iommi-powered riffing, there’s indeed something wicked about EARTHRIDE and it’s never been more well-exampled than on their third full-length, and first since Corrosion Of Conformity’s Mike Dean-produced ‘Vampire Circus’ in 2005.
‘Something Wicked’ not only sees Sherman reuniting with his former SPIRIT CARAVAN partner Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich (who should needs no introduction) on the epic “Supernatural Illusion” but also serves a proof that those doom-rockers have been digging deeper and deeper their own grave. Boosted by tar-infused six-strings, Sherman’s the-morning-after-Lemmy-fucked-Phil-Anselmo rasping and far more than just your average Maryland fix, this is the sound of ‘Masters Of Reality’ filtered through a bong during a night out getting fucked up on meth and bootleg booze in the swamps. This is doom-rock, this is EARTHRIDE.