Given the context of what was going on in the world back in March, one might be forgiven for letting the release of Helix Nebula, the second album from Montijo, Portugal-based atmospheric heavy four-piece Earth Drive, slip through the cracks. Issued through Raging Planet, the record dropped on March 13, which was one day after the Portuguese government put the country into emergency lockdown because of the pandemic. So, granted, there would’ve been plenty of time for one to encounter the album and listen, but let’s say that maybe the terror of not being able to leave one’s home for fear of contracting firelung might have been a distraction. Fair enough.

All the better, then, that Earth Drive — fronted by the significant vocal presence of Sara Antunes, with Hermano Marques backing her and playing guitar, Luis Silva on bass and Sebastião Santos on drums — have a new video out for “Axial View” from the album, so that one might rectify the crack-slippery and get on board with Helix Nebula before it’s too late. A worthy endeavor it would be, as well, since the band so seamlessly bring together ambient drone, cosmic doom and a psychedelic range that is underscored and perhaps a bit grounded by post-grunge hooks like those in “Axial View,” as well as “Sience of Pranayama” (sic) and the early-arriving title-track, surrounded on either side by an interlude at the album’s outset in a way that sets up the pattern the rest of the record proceeds to following, weaving into and out of solidified structures and more fluid tonal excursion with apparent and resonant ease.

It’s not all so straightforward back-and-forth as the first couple cuts, but as the album proceeds, it plays heft and breadth off each other effectively to give Helix Nebula a duly spacious and immersive feel, something of a cosmic dive-in for the listener to experience that works best as a whole but is readily accessible in its individual parts. You’ll find “Axial View” a suitable entry point, appearing as it does between the airier “Spectra” and the heavy-post-rock vibing “Dharma Throne,” but definitely take it as one, and as Europe and much of the world continues to recover from the trauma that’s beset it, finding new ways to move forward, Earth Drive‘s tonality offers if not direct escapism, then at very least the comfort of a sure guiding hand in terms of crafting songs and an ensuing atmosphere.

The video for “Axial View” adopts a more terrestrial perspective, basically taking performance footage of the band and bleeding from one shot to the next, etc., as it does — though again, in context, it’s somehow a novelty to think of a band getting together in a rehearsal space to jam. Something precious to enjoy then.

So please enjoy:

Earth Drive, “Axial View” official video

Powered by Earth Drive & Hermano Marques
(Produced and Edited by Hermano Marques @ Earth Drive studios Aka A.R.M.A
Song AXIAL VIEW by Earth Drive (Mix and Master by Fernando Matias @ The pentagon audio manufacturers
Released by Raging Planet

Portuguese heavy psych rock unit EARTH DRIVE release their sophomore, stellar album titled Helix Nebula via Raging Planet. The four-piece, who is characterized by a dense, melodic, visceral, cathartic and heavy sound, has created their most ritualistic and meditative record to date. While the power of distortion and loud amps still lead you in front of a massive sound wall, EARTH DRIVE manage to combine all that is heavy with yet spatial effects, catchy hooklines by vocalist Sara Antunes and a hazy, mesmerizing atmosphere.

EARTH DRIVE, who burst into the underground scene in 2007, left their heavy stamp with a first EP, Planet Mantra, followed by their highly acclaimed debut album, Stellar Drone. In addition to the band’s traditional cosmic and psychedelic influences, their new album Helix Nebula explores the potential of raw and powerful tunes with a warm, saturated and ambient sound in a more refined way.

EARTH DRIVE is:
Luis Silva – Bass
Sebastião Santos – Drums
Sara Antunes – Vocals
Hermano Marques – Vocals and guitar

Earth Drive, Helix Nebula (2020)

Earth Drive on Thee Facebooks

Earth Drive on Bandcamp

Raging Planet website

The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.

Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.

Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan

Days of Rona: Earth Drive (Montijo, Portugal)

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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?

So far everyone is healthy in the band and we are taking good care of ourselves and family the way is possible. Due to this COVID-19 complex situation in the world we had to cancel our new album kick of tour show´s and this had a huge impact in the band emotional and financial investments. But we are coping the best we can with this and for now we need to wait to see how long this will last and if we need to postpone more show´s and reschedule all things again. It’s hard all this uncertainty but we will get through this for sure.

What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?

We are now in a state of emergency.

This more radical measure covers patients with COVID-19 and the rest of population who must remain in hospital or in a health facility or be closed at home. The measure will also cover those who are under active surveillance, determined by health authorities due to the risk of having contracted the disease.

For those who are in compulsory confinement, the violation of this rule constitutes a crime of disobedience. To prevent this, the authorities of the place of residence will have a list of people in these circumstances, provided by the health authorities. For the time being, a sanctioning framework has not been created, but this is expected to happen if it proves necessary.

Those over 70 years of age have a special duty of protection, which means that they will only be able to leave home in the cases provided by law: go shopping; the doctor or the pharmacy; the bank, post office, or insurance company; going to the street to walk the dog or for some physical exercise, and collective activities are prohibited. The same rules apply to immunocompromised patients and those with chronic disease who should be considered at risk: hypertensive patients, diabetics, cardiovascular patients, patients with chronic respiratory disease and cancer patients.

This special duty of protection does not cover anyone, who is not on leave, maintains his professional activity; health professionals and civil protection agents; and also the politicians, magistrates and leaders of the social partners.
To citizens in general who, despite everything, have a wide range of exceptions that allow them to travel on the public road, namely: go shopping; moving to work or responding to a job offer; go to the pharmacy, the doctor or give blood; giving help to parents, children, people with disabilities or in some way vulnerable; to go to school (only for the children of health personnel or security forces); social volunteering; for a brief individual physical activity; to walk the dog or any animal to the vet; or for any case of force majeure. Journalists can also travel, in the exercise of freedom of the press.

How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?

We feel that this is affecting in a deep way the community. We feel some anxiety and fear and this grows along the bad news that TV constantly shows to the people. There is a lot of hope thou that this will bring a huge transformation for the humanity and for the world if people understand this as an opportunity to change and to push governments to start making the right decisions for the planet. There are a lot of professionals working hard to save lives and a lot of other people working hard to transmute people fears into light and hope to balance the world energy. We feel that artists are dealing with a lot of frustration right now but there are a lot of us doing things to comfort people doing stream shows and other initiatives in order to not lose their purpose and to keep fighting to prevent that humanity lose their identity. The humanity without culture is a humanity without identity. So let’s rock even harder together!

What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?

Well we just want people to know that we are all in this together and in this moment is the perfect situation to start to let our egos out of the way and work as ONE to save humanity and to reconnect us to mother nature. She will always prevail and we are the ones who need to learn how to get along with her. We just want people to know that we will be here in the music scene to honor the privilege to do this and try to respect all of you and nature with our honest music, art and attitude. We are in a very delicate situation like a lot of people, bands, promoters, PR agencies, sound engineers, labels, specialized press and a lot of other music agents working on music but together we will learn and get through this rocking.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to express our feelings and thoughts about this crisis.

A big hug for everyone and please be safe! The best version of ourselves is yet to come. Peace!

www.facebook.com/earthdrivesound
www.earthdrive.bandcamp.com
www.ragingplanet.pt

Somewhere between progressive metal and heavy psychedelic rock, Portugal’s Earth Drive dig out the immersive, atmospheric niche in which their new album, Helix Nebula, resides. The record comprises 12 tracks and runs about 40 minutes, and as they show with the unveiled single “Dharma Throne” — one of the longest inclusions at 5:25 — it’s a full and deep-running sound but still capable of moving at a fair clip when they want it to do so. Melody rules the day, but impact isn’t forgotten along with that, and the band shift back and forth between different ends of their sound with a marked fluidity only enhanced by variations in their songwriting, drones, and other experiments throughout Helix Nebula. From “Cosmic Eye” to “Space God,” it’s clearly meant to be a journey, and so it is. One of deceptive efficiency.

Anyone else notice Portugal in general and Raging Planet in particular killing it lately? Something to keep an eye on.

From the PR wire:

EARTH DRIVE Return With Brand New Album, Helix Nebula, and Release First Single!

March 13th 2020 will see Portuguese heavy psych rock unit, EARTH DRIVE, release their sophomore, stellar album titled Helix Nebula via Raging Planet. The four-piece, who is characterized by a dense, melodic, visceral, cathartic and heavy sound, has created their most ritualistic and meditative record to date. While the power of distortion and loud amps still lead you in front of a massive sound wall, EARTH DRIVE manage to combine all that is heavy with yet spatial effects, catchy hooklines by vocalist Sara Antunes and a hazy, mesmerizing atmosphere. Just recently, the band shared a first appetizer taken from Helix Nebula – join the trip and dive into EARTH DRIVE’s brand new single for Dharma Throne HERE!

Helix Nebula – Tracklisting:
1. Cosmic Eye
2. Helix Nebula
3. Holy Drone
4. Spectra
5. Axial View
6. Dharma Throne
7. Nagarjuna
8. Anulom Vilom
9. Sciene of Pranayama
10. Amazon
11. Phantalien
12. Space God

EARTH DRIVE, who burst into the underground scene in 2007, left their heavy stamp with a first EP, Planet Mantra, followed by their highly acclaimed debut album, Stellar Drone. In addition to the band’s traditional cosmic and psychedelic influences, their new album Helix Nebula explores the potential of raw and powerful tunes with a warm, saturated and ambient sound in a more refined way.

Among numerous festival appearances, EARTH DRIVE have shared the stages with bands alike Sasquatch, Steak, Crippled Black Phoenix, Glowsun, Isaak, Radar Man from the Moon, Planet of Zeus, Spectral Haze, Ecstatic Vision, The Black Wizards and many more to date – but one is sure, with the release of their upcoming album, Helix Nebula, they will be no longer Portugal’s best kept heavy psych rock- secret!

Helix Nebula will be available as LP, CD and in Digital formats on March 13th 2020 via Raging Planet.

EARTH DRIVE is:
Luis Silva – Bass
Sebastião Santos – Drums
Sara Antunes – Vocals
Hermano Marques – Vocals and guitar

www.facebook.com/earthdrivesound
www.earthdrive.bandcamp.com
www.ragingplanet.pt

Earth Drive, “Dharma Throne”