Eartheater’s new studio album ‘Powders’ released Sept. 20, 2023.
This will be a purely feeling based review unbiased in the realm of mixing and vocal range or ability, which I know is a big stressor on the topic of Eartheater, but everyone knows she’s crazy talented and works on her art like hell. So this will not be a lame review of application or skill. It is divided into each song as it comes to me. WORD.
Sugarcane Switch
Melancholic loathing but gritty and sad like some old grunge song without the heavy instruments. Rampant kicks opening up into vision, from not seeing to anguish from loss.
Different events unfold and each time I realized I was in a world it became very overwhelming and it got me like 3 times like that.
Crushing
And just like that it fades into the next song, and as it breaks apart we jump through the jumps and it’s compelling me and it washes over me and cuts off like when the cold creeps up when it’s chilly. It’s calm; what she is saying to me, like some entity comes in and is speaking in symphony and is a gold warm in the cold. That’s when another thing comes in and sort of whisks you away to another view or vision and you just gently cascade.
Face In the Moon
I’ve landed somewhere balmy and I’m met with a question. It opens and becomes more high cut almost like I’ve regained consciousness to some wild goings on. While I’m still in this tranquil environment I’m stressing a little, but the waves hitting the beach take away my negative paranoid ambitions and sort of cleanse my mind. I realize the daze at the beginning was less knowing and I therefore found myself more at ease. but I now must figure something out. There’s something reoccurring; it’s an ancient mystery of time. No outside of time. Don’t forget where you rest though.
Clean Break
Now I’ve been hit like a ton of bricks. Something grounding just happened, now we are in life, the conscious life, the unconscious nightmare. moving like hyper thoughts when trying to sleep.
The song is persisting as everything. You’re taken to new places and you are unsure deep inside, where is home.
It ends on an unclean break
Chop Suey
Chop suey is a System of a down cover. Yeeessss. It’s like getting comfortable with a song and allowing your emotions to dictate the feeling of the song rather than vice versa. A very powerful song too. with a second life in this cover like when you reinvent and contort a feeling into something new through the anger of being stuck.
Heels Over Head
Coming from confusion you think it would go one way but it keeps going, not swerving but completely submerging itself in, going deeper in some enticing murky swamp. And as the dark green sludge digests you it gives way into these winding paths which all meet on one string of thought. It’s cosmically daunting but you are familiar now with the pulsing and it becomes a light guide.
Mona Lisa Moan
As you ready for a fight you realize everything is softer and you can now meet the snake god head of death with affection. Now the teacher is you. You can ask questions and be sure of what’s real. Ask what you want as demands and gallop like a horse through your thoughts. Everything is tired and still, the only thing that moves is the wind hushing the tall grass. You are the deciding force of nature, stop and go as you please.
Pure Smile Snake Venom
The sounds are like an echo chamber from the past but not your past. a collective fractal like past present and future that has occurred in the little pockets of pockets; soap bubbles on bigger soap bubbles which emerge from a big pot of suds. It is ever persisting like a machine and you can be sucked underneath or ride on top like a palanquin on top of a tsunami. but time is your friend. and can be treated as such, something beautiful to see grow and move and each allowed to swim where they please and not be messed with. It’s empowering to be given the opportunity to harm or destroy something and say no I won’t. It’s like saying “I love myself”, and you must.
Salt of the Earth (H2ome)
Like sitting on any elevation ready for the sun to come down from play, your mind still wants that but you can’t keep going. Glimpses and time lapsed shadows emerge from the serenity of drifting off. You’re lulled to sleep by serene resonance. Strangely uncomfortable with your new found comfort and knowledge. Still happy knowing you will not end. And branches will be broken and grown and twisted in all new ways.
Synopsis
I will compare this to her older works. Although I liked her other projects better and they hold a more iconic kind of view, this was very enjoyable. I love feeling like every song is a new world and I notice this freshness that I’ve also witnessed in many other artists as of late. Songs like C.L.I.T or Peripheral off of Irisiri feel more charged and overall there was an experimental hunger in them that was so clean. Understandably, this was a different time and different convention. Powders felt like a green cloud, or like a spring storm with chilly fall gusts. An overall calm yet real experience. Powders is a very good album, thank you eartheater.
