Allow us to, ahem, launch this post with a reference to a Spritualized song, “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.” Imagine that sensation. And then imagine you’re a fucking dog—not long for this world—in a space capsule floating in space. That’s the premise behind Minneapolis-based quartet Earthrise‘s new track, “Our Work in the Stars Cannot Wait,” from their upcoming self-released Until We Rest Beneath the Winter Way album.
“Our Work in the Stars Cannot Wait” is the first single from the Minnesota post-metal outfit—Mike Britson (guitar), Sam Halvorson (vocals), Jimmy Neumann (drums), Andy Rutledge (bass) and Jim Schloemer (synths)—who crafted their second album around a very unique and unusual theme (see more below). The track starts ominously with an overdriven and distorted attack and hoarse vocals before transitioning into a more spacious—and spacey—landscape that continues to lighten as the song progresses. By the close, though, the heavier approach has resumed and the track returns to earth, just as it departed.
Until We Rest Beneath the Winter Way is set for release on October 14, but you can go ahead preorder it now right here.
This is what the band had to say about the track and its new album:
“Until We Rest Beneath the Winter Way frames vignettes into the life and times of Laika, the first animal sent into Earth’s orbit. Each track on UWRBTWW represents a slice in history, as she endured it. The album culminates with the launch of Sputnik II, the second major event in humanity’s reach to the heavens, symbolized by a lifeless canine body orbiting the Earth for months on end—a somber meditation on humanity’s innumerable self-inflicted tragedies, as if stuck in orbit forever.
“Due to political pressure fueled by the success of Sputnik I, the same engineers were forced to create and launch Laika’s capsule, Sputnik II, in a single month’s time. Laika was subjected to a barrage of experiments and training regimens to prepare her for flight, the most severe of which were high-gravity simulations in a makeshift centrifuge. The first single on UWRBTWW, ‘Our Work in the Stars Cannot Wait,’ stands as musical representation of these brutal centrifuge tests.”