Soar is the sixth album from Earth Ship, a sludgy doom metal trio from Berlin, Germany. I have never heard of this band before, but such is the way of the world, with so many bands and such depth of music being released. This is pretty good stuff though.

They go through eight tracks in about forty minutes, which means the songs are neither so long as to require endurance from the listener, or so short as to be over quickly. In the metal world, you get both of these occurrences, and Earth Ship seem to strike a balance. I appreciate that.

The record starts off with Shallow. A nice bluesy guitar riff wails, then drums and bass join in and the song hits a nice groove. At about two and half minutes, the vocals start, and it is that intense metal growling scream sort of vocal, so at this point some people would bail. This vocal style (which sounds like it HURTS to perform) is disliked by many people, so it's kind of a gatekeeper for the genre. That said, the riffing here is nice, especially after the bridge where guitarist Jan Oberg plays a toe-tappingly happy guitar riff that is very catchy.

The second track is the title track here, and Soar is definitely sung in English. I guess with the bellowing scream on Swallow I didn't notice, but the words here are a little more comprehensible, and definitely in English. This song, again, features some catchy riffing, here bassist Sabine Oberg joining her guitarist husband in some nice grinding riffing.

And that is sort of how this record goes: screaming, riffing, catchy yet heavy. Two other tracks really stand out.

Radiant starts off with a cool drum solo from drummer André Klein, and then morphs into a psychedelic jam. The guitar kind of meanders as the rhythm section keeps a steady beat. This song is not as intense as the rest of the songs, but it's fun.

And on the final track on the album, Daze And Delights, guitarist Oberg really gets his blues on, the guitar all bent whiny notes, the bass a whining drone, and the vocals are even sung, not growled. They actually do this pretty well.

But otherwise, this is sludgy, doomy metal. Fans of the genre will want to track down Earth Ship