EPK – Fall of Earth – From The Ashes (2023)
Publicist – Jon Asher – jon[@]ashermediarelations[.]com
“The album is a consistent ride full of ups and downs, with no breaks. We’ve taken our heavy sections and made them heavier, and taken our softer sections and made them more impactful. We have carefully calculated all the dynamics and structures of each song so each second of every track serves a purpose. This record has pieces of us personally etched into the music, so we could share who we are and what our minds look like on an audio basis. As far as the listening experience goes, with all this being said, we hope for our fans to feel the love and importance that music has had on our lives, and pass that on to them through our own interpretation.
Both of our singles, “Shore of War” and “Block out The sun” deliver experiences from opposite sides of our sonic spectrum. Shore of War capitalizes on our heavy, dark side, while exploring intricate grooves and neck-breaking sequences. On the other hand, Block out The Sun brings heartwarming, uplifting energy which gives the listener a more emotional experience, and is an accessible track for newcomers of this genre.” – Fall of Earth
For fans of Trivium, Gojira, Dream Theater, Periphery, Mastadon
Album Title – From The Ashes
Release Date: April 21, 2023
Label: Self-Release
Fallofearthband.com | Facebook.com/FallOfEarthBand | Twitter.com/FallofEarthBand | Instagram.com/fallofearthband | Youtube.com/@FallofEarth
“Fresh Tracks: Fall of Earth offers a smorgasboard of metal on From the Ashes… What if a band took numerous metal genres and combined them to form a monstrous kaiju ? This is the modus operandi of Edmonton’s Fall of Earth. Known more succinctly as “hybrid metal,” Fall of Earth’s sound encompasses death, thrash, progressive, metalcore; you name it, they have it cranked to 11” – Edmonton Journal
“From the Ashes is an impressive album that showcases Fall of Earth’s growth as musicians and their ability to create powerful, impactful music. The band’s unique sound and technical skill are on full display, and Rye’s vocals are a standout feature throughout the album. From the Ashes is a must-listen for any Metal fan, and Fall of Earth is a band to keep an eye on in the future. Look for them on tour in Canada and many other places.” – Metal Express Radio
“A young and rising Canadian Progressive Death Metal and Metalcore act will attack your senses mercilessly with their incendiary and very personal sophomore album.” – The Headbanging Moose
“A young and rising band from Edmonton kicked some ass armed with their Progressive Death Metal and Metalcore where rock will never die in Toronto last night…. if they’re playing in your city anytime soon don’t miss the chance to watch one of the most promising names from the Canadian Prairies.” – Headbanging Moose (Live Review – June 18, 2023 – Toronto – The Rockpile)
“I had the opportunity to see Fall of Earth for the first time recently during Indie Night In Canada and their live set blew me away, these are four guys that are so passionate about what they do that it’s almost impossible not to feel it coming off the stage. There’s a lot of metal bands out there who sound great live or sound great on recording, and when I watched From The Ashes I was excited to learn this band brings the best of both worlds. Whether you see them on stage on the screen, Fall of Earth is truly a force of nature and if you’re looking for one of Canada’s next big metal bands right before they blow up, look no further!” – Dropout Ent. (Live Review – Toronto – June 2023)
“It is an extreme variety of the form we get here, and one that at the core level is defined by seamless transitions between extreme metal, thrash metal and power metal. But in between we also get quirkier parts more aligned with progressive metal, and more interestingly from a progressive point of view we also get a liberal array of acoustic and semi-acoustic passages and interludes with a more delicate and atmospheric laden style, form and orientation. The vocals come with the same amount of versatility, with harsh and melodic lead vocals being the main forms used. A production to seek out by those with an interest in a powerful and vibrant variety of extreme progressive metal expanded with a liberal array of delicate and atmospheric laden interludes.” – Progressor
“Progressive metal, with a bit of a tech death thing going on. clean and harsh vox. cool stuff” – WORT 89.9 FM (Madison, WI)
“The nine songs present some real diversity in the genre by embracing several different approaches” – Metal Temple
““Medusa,” hits hard and powerful a song that immediately grabs the listener by the throat and never lets go.” – The Median Man
“Fall of Earth are gradually gaining more and more of the city spotlight” – E-Know
“Fall of Earth, is bolting through the scene with their magnificent stage presence and performance. High energy and a sure crowd-pleaser that will leave you wanting more. I’ll admit, these guys blew my mind! I’m a big fan now for sure! Some awesome individuals as well that genuinely show a passion for their craft and a desire to deliver a live show you won’t forget!” – Heavy Metal A Way of Life
“What can I say in one or two sentences? Imagine a jackhammer with social issues assaulting your skull, or maybe a freight train screaming through a jungle and cutting down every tree it hits. When you go see this band, you can decide which one makes more sense. They are a highly organized machine of madness as they hit you with almost every genre of Heavy Metal out there. They can go from serious hard rocking into genres like, Thrash, Death, Progressive. Who knew such a well-oiled machine came from Edmonton, Alberta?… If you love metal, this is a great Canadian band flying the flag high, so go out and support them!” – Blast Toronto
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Track By Track:
1. Medusa
Medusa breaks down the greek lore. Viewing the multiple perspectives of a heartless and jealous Athena, a wicked Poseidon, the oppressors of Medusa, and Medusa herself. To bestow an unjust punishment, and face the consequences of another’s actions. Enough to turn even the purest of hearts.
Our second longest song, and a pounding heavy track, Medusa explores some highly technical musical sections that sound both evil and chaotic while having some melody that wraps it all together. This track has an ambient intro and a beautiful acoustic section later on that keeps the listener on their toes.
2. The Dead And The Soon To Be
Some live life to the fullest, while some live life just to die. The clocks always ticking. How wisely do most use that finite time? Is it fulfilling? Did you do something meaningful? The walking dead roam the earth. Wasting your time means you might as well be dead already.
The instruments for this track are definitely centered around the chorus riff, which is a very simple yet powerful progression. Everything else bloomed from that part to cover many other angles and directions that were made possible. This song utilizes a soft verse and epic bridge which serves as the pinnacle of the track.
3. Block Out The Sun
Block out the sun was written during a seasonal depression with Covid 19. Sick and isolated, Alex did what he does best in a sour mood- Writing music. It started off sad, but slowly his core belief took over, and soon it transformed into an uplifting reminder that when you’re down you can always lean on others to rise up and shine together.
Block out the Sun is both the shortest and most accessible track off this record. It captures a positive uplifting mood, while still having some grit and intensity mixed in. The lyrics and vocal melody were written first, so all the instruments were written to emulate the message of the song, and deliver a similar emotion
4. Path to Self Destruction
This is definitely a dark and personal track, written about somebody very close to me who continues to suffer from a serious and crippling drug addiction. This song expresses how I felt watching somebody I love throw their life away and turn into somebody I couldn’t even recognize anymore. Drug addiction is a very serious disease, and I hope this song could speak volumes to people who are going through a similar situation. This song could also be seen from an inward perspective of someone’s own addiction
The opening section of this song was written for drums first, so the other instruments naturally orbited around it. This song contains constant key changes and mood shifts and harnesses anger and intensity while being eerie and fast-paced. Specifically inspired by Death with the motifs and style of riffs we use in this track.
5. Cross Roads
The events in our lives come with many decisions. Each is an intersection of many multiple roads, and there’s no going back. A leap of faith is all that’s needed, to take control of one’s own life, or succumb to its weight. Cross Roads are at every little decision, every commitment, and every resolution
This is our longest, most progressive track yet. Clocking in at nearly 10 minutes, we designed this song to be an entire experience. This song does ride the idea of being uplifting and positive, but unlike Block out the Sun, it holds a more serious and urgent connotation. This is the first track we have ever faded out, we decided on this ending because we found a closing section that was too epic to stop suddenly, so the song fades away with those feelings it gives you.
6. From the Ashes
From the ashes speaks about levels of childhood abuse, reclamation, and metamorphosis. Rising from the ashes like a Phoenix, All people are capable of rehabilitation and recovering from trauma. Neglected and beaten as a child and into early adulthood, the character of this song resists their oppressive parent and chooses to rise above the smoke (uncertainty) and evil of their past.
This track is practically death metal and is incredibly fast and heavy. It jumps into the evil riffs right off the bat without warning. You can’t put the brakes on this song, it just rips all the way through and also contains our first-ever breakdown to finish it off.
7. Shore of War
War is hell. Shore of War speaks on the historic events of D-Day during world war 2. None of us could imagine the trauma of fighting in a war and watching our brothers and comrades die before our own eyes. We do our best efforts to detail the experience of such a nightmarish circumstance, both from a soldier’s perspective, and a societal perspective.
Starting and ending with the use of chromatic music theory, and percussive riffs across all instruments, we feel as if this adds an element of chaos and uncertainty. The underlying tone of the music itself is to emulate impending doom and sheer panic. Yet there is an eb and flow of unique grooves that somewhat makes this feel cohesive.
8. Purgatory
A recently passed man observes how quickly he is forgotten in the world of the living. With his memory fading from existence and the ones he thought loved him continuing their lives effortlessly, he must wander in a state of limbo. Not being able to accept the harsh truth, the man is left to explore purgatory for eternity without passing on to a heavenly afterlife.
We start off this track with a melancholy bass intro, in a strange time signature of 13/8. The song builds off of this section piece by piece, becoming more full up until the verse where it takes off and comes together. There is an interesting mix of despair and realization within this composition, highlighted by the contrast between sections. I personally think the pinnacle of this song is the first bridge section, where we lay down a heart-pounding, groovy “Gojira” style riff, and eventually bring it back to an alternate chorus to tie all these dynamics together.
9. Into the Woods
Into the woods is album 2’s “Fall of Earth”. Touching again on topics of climate change, rising sea levels, increased natural disasters, and extreme weather. The signs of our dying mother. While we are hopeful that as a species we will pull together and fix the wrongs we’ve done on our precious and only home, This doesn’t mean we are in the clear. Although we have made great progress and humanity seems to be on a path where we will survive- Many issues need to be addressed. Actions need to be taken. We must move faster to protect mother earth and its children. “Through the trees, a wind of whispers lost connection to our ears.” We must reconnect to our bond with nature
With this track being the official ballad off of our sophomore record, we did take an entirely different approach to its song structure. With the exclusion of the intro and outro of this song, we laid out a few solid sections including a definitive chorus and repeated it a second time to reinforce these moments. There is a melodic, tasteful solo in the middle that acts as a clear separator. This is the same formula that Death would use in most of their discography. As far as the beginning and end of the song gooes, the intro embraces a soft, mysterious foreshadowing of the epic sequences to follow, using clean ambient guitars, acoustic guitars, and bass accents. The outro is very similar to the intro, but recaptures the section on a lonesome acoustic guitar instead. This ending alone is what made us decide on closing our album with this track.
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Story Angles – Fun Facts:
1. How we found our bass player was in the most unexpected way. We encountered the wild Aaron in his natural habitat: the gym. After spending some time getting to know him as a good friend, he decided to join us in one of our band practices. With it being his first time ever holding a bass guitar, I showed him our song “Prison” on bass and he picked it up instantly. He technically joined the band before he even learned the instrument!
2. In our beginning stages of making music together, Brody was late for practice one day because he was at the gym for longer than expected. Alex and Brendan jokingly “kicked him out” of the band, but he took it seriously. He took his guitar outside and smashed it on the pavement. After realizing this was only a joke, Brody was very embarrassed and went to go by a new guitar shortly after. Ever since then, Brody has been on time for almost every practice.
3. In our early days as a basement band, we used to host our practice space in the house some of us were renting at the time. During one of our practices, Brendan’s drumstick went flying out of his hand which isn’t an unusual event. But after looking around trying to find it, we found it lodged straight into the TV. Which was our roommate’s Dad’s TV. Long story short, Brendan replaced that TV and gave our roommate’s Dad a big apology.
4. In September of 2021, we were set to headline a Festival out in the middle of nowhere. It was promised that there would be crazy high-end production and over a thousand people. Well… it was nothing like that. Maybe 50 people were there, plus the bands that also performed. We were still ready to tear up the stage anyways, so we went up and started our set. Halfway through our third song, our sound got completely cut off and one of the festival workers came up to let us know that somebody filed a noise complaint and the RCMP were on their way. Although the RCMP never came, they had to shut the festival down regardless. We made sure to reimburse all of our friends that came out to watch us by giving them free tickets to the next show we had the weekend after.
5. At one of our shows last year, Aaron’s arm unexpectedly started seizing up and he wasn’t able to move his fingers anymore. We still had a few songs left in our set, and we didn’t want to give up right away. Luckily, a good friend who had filled in for us before was in the crowd and still remembered how to play a few songs on bass. So we pulled him on stage and he absolutely killed it during “The Dead and the Soon to Be”. We still had to use up some stage time, and it was by total coincidence that the other band that played with us, “Misplaced Intentions”, learned one of the same covers we knew. So we called up their bassist Landon, and frontman Matt, and crushed out “Them Bones” by Alice in Chains. Even though we had a huge curveball thrown at us that night, we handled the situation the best we could and made sure that the show could go on.
[Download Album Cover | Download Album Lyrics]
Album Title – From The Ashes
Release Date: April 21, 2023
Label: Self-Release
Track Listing:
1. Medusa (8:25)
2. The Dead And Soon To Be (5:54)
3. Block Out The Sun (4:24)
4. Path To Self Destruction (6:40)
5. Crossroads (9:35)
6. From The Ashes (5:14)
7. Shores Of War (5:49)
8. Purgatory (6:00)
9. Into The Woods (6:33)
Album Length: 58:39
Album Recording Credits
• All songs performed by: Fall Of Earth
• All songs written by: Fall Of Earth
• Produced by: Diego Fernandez, Oracle Recording Studios
• Mixed by: Diego Fernandez
• Mastered by: Diego Fernandez
• Album Artwork by: Band
• Member of SOCAN
• Canadian Content (MAPL)
Album Band Lineup:
Alex Rye- Lead Vocals
Brodie Bauer- Guitar, Vocals
Brendan Meilleur- Drums, Vocals
Aaron Winklmeier- Bass, Vocals
Discography:
2022 – From The Ashes – LP
2020 – Fall Of Earth – LP
L-R – Brody Bauer – Lead Guitar, Vocals, Myles Packer – Bass, Vocals, Alex Rye – Lead Vocals, Brendan Meilleur – Drums, Vocals, Matthew Lindholm – Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Photo Credit: Darla Woodley, Red Socks Photography
Fall of Earth, based in Edmonton, Alberta, is a Hybrid Metal band. They are led by the growls, screams, and soaring clean vocals of Inuit frontman Alex Rye, who captivates every audience member with his energy and showmanship. The flying fingers of axe slinger Brody Bauer produce a dizzying array of sounds that regularly elicit screams of rapture from the audience. The progressive and primal low end is provided by bass wielder Myles Packer and Brendan Meilleur brings the elite combination of high-energy drum fills and expressive grooves, all while contributing vocal harmonies. Fall of Earth has recently added Rhythm guitar player, Matt Lindholm, who adds skill and dynamic to the band. Collectively, the members of Fall Of Earth possess the highest levels of musicianship while never forgetting to put on the exceptional live show the band has become known for delivering. It’s more than a rock show, it’s an experience!
Fall Of Earth is a play on words that reflects their core belief that the world is experiencing a multitude of issues including climate change, war, and mass extinctions that are leading us all to a darker place as a society. The band hopes to use the power of music to help the world recover.
2023 has been a busy year so far with both a Western and Eastern Canada tour, the release of their sophomore album titled “From The Ashes” featuring 9 tracks that definitely hook the listeners, the release of their single “Block Out The Sun” to radio, supported by a lyric video, Lyric Video release for “Different Breed” and Full Video Release for “From The Ashes”. With a few festivals during the summer and back on the road for a 3-month Cross-Canada Tour in September, Fall of Earth is building its momentum and fans everywhere.
Album Lineup:
Alex Rye – Lead Vocals
Brodie Bauer – Guitar, Vocals
Brendan Meilleur – Drums, Vocals
Aaron Winklmeier – Bass, Vocals
Fall of Earth is:
Live Lineup
Alex Rye – Lead Vocals
Brendan Meilleur – Drums, Vocals
Brody Bauer – Lead Guitar, Vocals
Matthew Lindholm – Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Myles Packer – Bass, Vocals
Tours / Festivals:
2022- Alternative Waves Music Festival, Medicine Hat, AB
2023- Serenade Metal Fest, Edmonton, AB
2023- Loud As Hell – Drumheller, AB
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