Mr. Mike Mckenzie, the man behind Stomach Earth, showed up in several other bands before, and his own project he seemed to endeavor to do by high quality production, in fact the highest that was actually reachable. By the sound, the atmosphere and the song compositions he surely succeeded. The album became a stunning death/doom record, filled with catchy melodies and very heavy, down pulling themes. The noisy, grim approach is working pretty well with the melodies and the melancholic atmosphere, by creating nice contrast. In fact it includes everything that could make a death/doom album enjoyable. The small aesthetical issues lying in the details, and these often occuring at one man projects. Like it's pretty rare if someone can play well on all instruments and also good at vocals. In "Stomach Earth" most possibly programmed drumming could be heard, and not the most suitable beat style was selected, cause the beats sounding kinda artificial. Also too strong effects were used at the vocals, which suggests that deep growling vocal style also isn't Mr. Mckenzie's strongest point. Among his other projects, in Nightkin the same issue came up, and to melodic black/death, this solution was even less advantageous. Probably the hardcore/metalcore-like screaming vocals are his thing, like what could be heard in The Red Chord or in Umbra Vitae. However, using technical support is still a better option than trying to play on drums if someone is simply not good at it, or trying vocal styles beyond personal capabilities. Things like these could completely ruin everything, and that happens often at one man projects. Stomach Earth partly avoided this issue, but the artificial impression is still there instead. Anyways, for the fans of death/doom it still could have things to offer by its strongly demoralizing obscureness.
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