heavy-metal-darkness: The Promise Of Plague |The Earth Above, A Grave Beneath |Throne Of Lies Records

Friday, March 13, 2026

The Promise Of Plague |The Earth Above, A Grave Beneath |Throne Of Lies Records

Release Date January 10^th, 2026
Format CD/Digital
Genre Blackened Doom/Death Metal
Country United States

The Promise Of Plague crawled out of Louisville, Kentucky almost a decade ago with their "Sleepwalking Into Armageddon" release. Operating today as a six-piece demolition crew, they unleash their fourth full-length assault, "The Earth Above, A Grave Beneath". Armed with dual vocalists JD Hall and Joanie Michele, alongside the fretboard destruction of Jerry Barksdale and Sam Pedneau, this collective channels pure darkness. The rhythm section, manned by Phil Garrett and Jim Huggins, completes a lineup built for heavy punishment. They play a twisted strain of blackened doom and death metal, stripping away the light and leaving nothing except raw decay.

"The Earth Above, A Grave Beneath" offers a massive assault of blistering speed and crushing, slow devastation. The music shifts abruptly between blast beats and dragging, doomed-out dirges. Guitars construct desolate landscapes filled with sorrow and rage. The dual vocals slash through the mix, alternating between guttural roars and piercing shrieks. Songs like "Vomit Running Through My Veins" and "Dead Mistake" display chaotic energy, dragging the listener through a graveyard of shattered riffs and punishing drum battery. It gets the head banging, delivering enough savage intensity to satisfy extreme metal maniacs demanding pure aggression.

Sometimes these guys get entirely lost inside their own massive sonic vortex. The frantic jumps between hyper-speed black metal fury and agonizing doom dragging can wreck the momentum entirely. "One Line Poem" and "My World Is Better, Darker" blast through the speakers with completely savage riffs, and then occasionally stall out for a minute too long before unleashing the next crushing attack. You get punished by relentless walls of noise colliding with sheer sonic violence. Chris Leffler manned the studio boards, dialing in a mix where the drums smash skulls and the guitars shred skin. The engineering keeps the sonic destruction completely lethal.

The strangest curveball happens at the end. They drop a totally mutated, unrecognizable cover of Quiet Riot’s "Metal Health". It twists an old-school anthem into a festering, rotting monstrosity. It provides a seriously wild conclusion to an incredibly harsh trip. "The Earth Above, A Grave Beneath" delivers a violent overdose of misery and rage. A few wandering sections keep it from total domination. It absolutely brings the pain and deserves maximum volume.

Score: 7.0