Track Premiere: Earthrise Emerge “From Below” on Post-Metal Epic

A decade is a long time to wait between albums, so Earthrise aren’t fucking around on their sophomore effort, Until We Rest Beneath the Winter Way. Telling the story of Laika, the Soviet dog who became the first animal to orbit the earth, Until We Rest Beneath the Winter Way is an album that aims (and succeeds) to be dramatic in scope.

Today, MetalSucks queues up “From Below,” the second track on Until We Rest, for early listening. Earthrise tell us about the track:

“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 her launch aboard 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 develop, construct, and launch—in one month’s time —the very first life-supporting, orbital spacecraft. The engineering challenges were enormous, but finding the creature they’d send to space was straightforward – they simply needed to look outside.

“Our second single, ‘From Below,’ illustrates Laika’s time as a stray on the streets of Moscow and her swift capture by the Soviets. The immediacy of launch meant there was little time for her proper care and humane testing, let alone guarantee of her return. Her capture sealed her fate and marked the beginning of the end of her story.”

“From Below” is a 10-plus-minute epic that takes its time building to a heavy peak, highlighting the sense of immediacy that Earthrise mentioned earlier. They’ll get to tell Laika’s full story soon; Until We Rest Beneath the Winter Way is out on October 14.