You can virtually cut and paste my review of 2021’s Maere for this Austrian duo’s 6th album, as they are so locked into their despondent, post/ shoe gaze/ atmospheric black metal sound, it’s scary.

That said, at a trim 67 minutes on 1 CD as opposed to Maere’s 2 CD, 84-ish minute affair, the band has trimmed a little fat, if still full of lengthy atmospherics and bridges. But as with Maere, it’s a sight to behold when they do lock into a melodic 6/8 gallop.

The 7 songs here (the 8th song is a cover of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit”) range from 7 to 10 minutes, and frankly, the opener, “Heal Me”, did nothing for me initially as the album’s first single. The vocals, as with Maere are leaning more into the shouty, angsty style, as opposed to the band’s blackened earlier efforts, and there is a little less blistering black metal contained within.

And while “Heal Me” does still have some more furious moments buried within its more mopey throes (like the rest of the album), it’s some other tracks that got my attention a little more. For example, the album’s longest track (almost 11 minutes), and standout “Keep Me Longing”|, with its gorgeous piano intro and backdrop, leads right into one of the band’s signature melodic jaunts that burst through the despondency with suddenness throughout the song.

The album’s second longest track, “Without You I’m Just a Sad Song”, is the album’s most languid song, with a mostly mid-paced, almost metalcore pacing, even with a killer black metal blast about halfway through. Then “No Grave But the Sea” is then one of the album’s more direct tracks, with a more urgent pace throughout. “With Autumn Ill Surrender” is another more restrained but shimmery track and has one of my favorite melodic black metal gallops on the album about 3:15 in, as does ” Was Just another Promise You Couldn’t Keep,” about 6:50 in. Svalbard’s Serena Cherry makes an appearance on the album’s most vitriolic/black metal track, “Too Late For Goodbyes”, adding some clean vocals to the fray.

That all said, Scorched Earth isn’t really an improvement over its predecessor, despite the shortened length. It is basically an almost identical album, where, like porn,  you have to wade through quite a bit of filler to get to the good bits. But boy are those good bits worth it. And I get the unnerving feeling these guys are headed towards  Deafheaven-like, commercial turn on the next album, but we shall see.

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