They're called "Earth Ship" - - is it any surprise that they have a bunch of similarities to Mastodon? Add a heavy coat of Alice in Chains, some dabs of Baroness and Cathedral, and a sprinkling of the stoner sound, and you have a pretty good image of Earth Ship's 2016 album, "Hollowed." I've said so in other reviews: 2016 has seen an incredible surge of Stoner Metal. The tracks aren't as ambitious or ethereal as some of Mastodon's work, not quite as snappy as Alice in Chains - - but the parallels are there.

"Hollowed" is not the kind of thing that reaches out and grabs you by the face, but the quality sections of the individual tracks will occasionally poke you to reclaim your attention. "Hollowed" makes a good, groovy soundtrack for multi-tasking, because listening ends up being one of the things you're doing. . . which is much preferable to just working with background noise, or some crappy terrestrial radio station. There is, however, a uniformity of sound from track to track that levels out the experience. ‘Safeguard of Death’, ‘Red Leaves’, and ‘Conjured’ are the songs that especially pull me back in, but these aren't the only good tunes. Book passage on the Earth Ship and explore for yourself.