Planet heavy

Earth Crisis shake the weight
of the world off their shoulders

by Brian Goslow

These are changing times for Earth Crisis, who recently returned to Chicago's Victory Records after finding the grass wasn't greener with Roadrunner. After 1998's Breed the Killers failed to build on the success of earlier releases, this hardcore outfit from Syracuse went shopping for a label that would put some energy into bringing them to the next level. It just happened to be the independent that released their first three records.

"[Victory] offered us the best deal of the four labels interested," says vocalist Karl Buechner from a pay phone next to a distractingly loud ventilating unit in Austin, Texas. "They gave us a budget that's good enough to do a quality video and a more serious radio push." The decision to jump back to Victory is paying off. Slither, the band's fifth full-length release, has been added to 22 commercial-radio playlists and currently sits at number three in the CMJ Loud Rock chart. And Earth Crisis are counting on a video for the highlight track "Nemesis" -- recently shot by Brian Dee in Los Angeles -- to push them further into the mainstream.

It's been a victory for Victory as well. Earth Crisis are the biggest-selling act in the history of the label, whose roster includes Boston's Blood for Blood and Reach the Sky, Connecticut's Hatebreed, and Buffalo, New York-based Snapcase. Victory knows that its primary market is 13-to-22 year olds -- and that the attitudes and ideas proffered in their bands' lyrics are an important selling point to that audience.

For the uninitiated, listening to Earth Crisis is like a week at boot camp. Slither is an intensely heavy album, both musically and lyrically. Eric Edwards and Scott Crouse's guitar playing rips through your body while bassist Ian Edwards and drummer Dennis Merrick's beat-you-into-submission rhythms give you few chances to come up for air. Then there's Buechner's paranoiac lyrics. "Robots and machinery could tip the scales of power to an elite few . . . a post-industrial plantation enforced by a surveillance police state," he warns on "Mass Arrest." On "Dawn of the Biomachines," he casts a weary eye towards the Dr. Frankensteins carrying out biogenetic research on defenseless animals.

On the road, Buechner screams out "time to decide, time to chose a side" ("Arc of Descent") on an almost-nightly basis, but he hasn't found the time to consider his voting options in the 2000 presidential election. "To be honest, I haven't had a chance to keep up with current events," he says. "We recorded this album in February. By March, we were on the road. In May and June we were in Europe and since then, back touring the states." All this without a road crew. "We've been driving and loading and pecking for ourselves."

While his vegan lifestyle and political views might suggest Buechner's seen a better societal model overseas, he voices his support for the good ol' USA. "We've got a great system here. The problem is a lot of people get in power who don't have concern for the people. They only want money and power."

These days, commercial radio is lousy with hard music, but Earth Crisis are bucking the very trend they helped establish by, surprise, singing, instead of rapping, more of their lyrics. Some of Buechner's vocals recall a young Ozzy Osbourne from the days Black Sabbath warned the world that "War Pigs" could destroy the earth. Earth Crisis knew they had to change their musical style if only to keep things fresh for themselves. "It's been re-invigorating for us to play the new material," Buechner says.

Soon after Slither's late-June release, "Nemesis" was the number one requested song for two weeks on Syracuse rock-radio powerhouse K-ROCK. "It's the first time we ever got a break in our home town," Buechner says. "We also got invited to play the K-ROCKathon, and while our aggressive underground stuff had been reported by CNN and CBS [focusing on the group's human-rights, animal-liberation, and pro-environmental stances], our local TV news wouldn't even cover us until now."

Listening to Earth Crisis's apocalyptic lyrics, you'd think Buechner's insides would be a living hell. Just the opposite. "We have a blast playing and that's why we still do it. On the road, we skate and we go mountain biking, and in the winter, when we're not on tour, we go snowboarding." Unlike other bands who never see the outside of their hotel rooms, Earth Crisis know this is the time of their life. "We saw the Alamo, the Grand Canyon, the redwoods, castles in Germany and England, and the remainder of the Berlin Wall. Going to Tokyo is like being 10 years in the future. They've got cars we haven't even seen yet," he says, adding, "We always try to get up early and get to see things a lot of bands never get to do. We know we're lucky."

Earth Crisis appear with In Flames, Skinlab, and Walls of Jericho on Friday, September 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Palladium, 261 Main Street, Worcester. Tickets are $15. Call (508) 797-9696.