Album Review: silence outlives the earth

The album cover of "silence outlives the earth" features a vibrant, abstract design of geometric shapes in a gradient of pink, orange, and purple hues, set against a bold magenta background.

While I was on a 7-hour road trip to Colorado, looking for an album to finally review for Wildcat 91.9, I stumbled upon a band I’d heard before but didn’t take a look into: Erra, a progressive metalcore band from Alabama. Intrigued at that thought itself, I then saw that their latest album, “silence outlives the earth”, was produced by Daniel Braunstein.

Braunstein happens to produce and co-write many songs from my favorite band, Canada’s Spiritbox. Instantly, I was more interested in what this band had to offer if Braunstein was in a similar role as he is with Spiritbox. 

In short, I was right. This album is an absolute banger.

This album almost sounds like German band Unprocessed, fed through a Spiritbox mold. Unprocessed are mostly noticeable for screwy guitar work combined with heavy drum and bass undertones, and this is similar, but with the more distorted, washy sound of Spiritbox. This is especially evident on the songs “further eden” and “gore of being”; both are fantastic and probably painfully difficult on all instruments involved.

“gore of being” has some vocal melodies a là modern Dream Theater, especially the albums Parasomnia (2025) and A View from the Top of the World (2021). “cicada siren” reminds me of Spiritbox especially, with less focus on the vocals, with an interlude in the middle that sounds quite a bit like Meshuggah’s “Bleed”. “echo sonata” is much of the same, and probably will make someone trying to learn it quit guitar.

“lucid threshold” is especially interesting; during the chorus, the guitarists apply a pop/rock type chord progression to the typical chugs heard throughout the rest of the album, and it provides a unique, almost victorious tone to the chorus that I haven’t heard before.

“i. the many names of god” may sound a little standard to the naked ear, but there’s a lot going on. The syncopation is more intense, the drums sound more difficult (which I’m going to love when I try to play these songs), and the low-pitched pinch harmonics are another parallel to Spiritbox’s Tsunami Sea (2025).

The intro to “iii. twilight in the reflection of dreams” is very reminiscent of Unprocessed and even Animals as Leaders, with a cleaner, almost baritone acoustic feel. Like those bands, the guitar work remains intricate and complex, if a little cliché in progression. Also reminiscent of Spiritbox, especially their song “A Haven With Two Faces” (2025). “iii” also has some nice guitar layering and effects, especially using delay.

The 43-minute album closes with an auto-tuned and harmonized “I can feel I’ve healed”.

In all, the album feels fresh but familiar to fans of modern, digitized metalcore. To fans of 1980s metal, Erra have eviscerated their beloved genre. To 2000s nu metal and metalcore fans, it probably feels like the genre they loved was taken too far, and perhaps too seriously. For me, it’s a nice evolution, and I definitely recommend it for someone looking for a new band to try out.