Band:	Mars On Earth
Album:	Mars On Earth
Style:	Symphonic metal
Release date:	2001
A review by:	Lucas

01. Mars On Earth
02. Planets
03. Die Stadt Ist Im Krieg
04. Bleeding Underwater

At first, I - foolishly - thought Mars On Earth was a pretty weird band name. It is, however, everything but a weird band name. In fact, it makes perfect sense. You see, aliens from Mars visited the Earth (see?) to record this mini-CD, their view of our world, their prediction of our future, only to leave again. Where to? Back to Mars, of course!

So, Mars On Earth, a three-headed Martian monster. Their vision of our future contains of (hold you breath, fasten your seatbelt and be sure to wear a protective yellow helmet): it's Black metal. Ish. With Industrial touches. Sort of. There's also plenty of electronic tom-foolery, such as blips and bleeps, military march-styled drum beats, passages that sound like they're lifted strange from an old Nintendo 64 adventure-type game, etc. Oh yeah, there are also raw, staccato, almost spoken-word-esque rasps and some sort of strange clean chanting.

That's really the best I can do, as far as sound descriptions go. That's partially because my English vacubo, vocuba, vacuobe... dammit... vocabulary (!) is limited to, say, fifty-ish words, but also because there's really no way to describe Mars On Earth*. And in my book (why do people use this expression? is this 'book' your diary? why the fuck would anyone older than thirteen keep a diary? are you a pussy?) that's usually pretty good.

If you like'd some of my previous, wacky recommendations, or if you like extreme & wacky metal in general, definitely give this a shot. While not overly genius, it's definitely a very fun, catchy little bugger.

I'd like to end this review with a word of appreciation for these kind Martians, who were friendly enough to take interest in our blue and green planet and leaving us with a really cool demo. Now, if only us Earthly metalheads would also be blessed with some music from Venus On Earth...

Nope, we're all going to die as virgins.

* It's actually pretty easy to describe them, as long as you can't be bothered with details. The term 'Industrial Black metal' covers the music pretty well. But I like to keep a mysterious aura around my favourite bands. It's pathetic, I know.