Published on Sep 14, 1997
When my father first asked me to review this album (he’s in the
same business as one of the guys in the band’s dad), I wasn’t
exactly thrilled with the prospect. How good can they be, I
thought? The first time I listened to the album was as background
music (what I was doing I can’t remember), but I remember being
surprised at the band’s accomplished playing; at the very least, I
thought, this definitely wasn’t a total dud. A couple of months
later, after a couple more cursory spins, I was ready to give this
album a fair shake and REALLY listen to it.
Fact is, the album doesn’t immediately grab you by the throat.
This is because Planet Earth move at their own relaxed pace. Upon
repeated spins, however, the album exerts an impressive and
addictive pull. The centerpiece of the band is guitarist Rob
Mastrianni, a dextrous player with a melodic, ringing guitar tone.
Joe Milazzo’s rumbling bass and Rich Martin’s tribal drum fills
provide the necessary framework for Mastrianni’s intense lead work,
most memorably on “Creature Cantina.”
Though low budget, the production is quite capable, featuring a
clear separation of instruments and bringing about a lonely, echoey
quality to the soloing. This album showcases quite a bit of that,
as each of the five tracks that are actual songs (more about that
later) last about six minutes, giving the players (specifically
Mastrianni) ample time to strut their stuff. These excursions are
generally for the purpose of further developing their mid-tempo
songs, and not merely exercises in showing off. Planet Earth expose
themselves as talented individual instrumentalists who, when
brought together, boast a fully developed and somewhat unsettling
sound. Their vocalist’s (I can’t tell who does the singing since
the liner notes don’t say) distinctive voice adds another eerie
element to their edgy mix; he sounds like a cross between Jim
Morrison and Tool’s Maynard James Keenan.
Though
Terragram is a promising debut, it is not without some
drawbacks. First of all, I wish the band would tighten up their
songwriting and strengthen their (usually science fictional)
lyrics. Secondly, I think the band needs to decide exactly what
they’re about: jarring juxtapositions such as the scream in “The
Yorktown Syndrome” seem out of place, as if the band can’t decide
whether they want to be a bluesy jam band, progressive rock outfit,
or a heavy metal combo; if they want to be an ambitious mixture
more power to them, but the album could flow a little better. In
addition, I find the nine indulgent minutes of percussion-led
gibberish and noisy atonality tacked onto the end of “Drifting”
monotonous and annoying.
Overall, though, I was pleasantly surprised by
Terragram, and think that the band offers a unique hybrid of
current sounds. Planet Earth’s alternately heavy and quietly
melodic sound evokes many other bands yet ultimately remains their
own original vision. Should this obviously young band (their
endearingly unpretentious liner notes read like something out of a
high school yearbook) continue to grow as songwriters and further
devlop their musical identity, I think they have a highly promising
future.