Return to Earth, ‘Automata’ — Album Trailer

New Jersey's proggy, alt-metal trio Return to Earth will release their second full length and Metal Blade Records debut, 'Automata,' on Aug. 17. To whet the appetites of fans, the band has posted the new song 'Back of My Hand' and a trippy, attention-kidnapping teaser.

Return to Earth are reminiscent of artsy bands like Tool and Nine Inch Nails, who employed visual aesthetics to parallel and complement the auditory emissions they were crafting. In this day and age, artwork and visual accompaniment is largely ignored by the download generation. Kids today see gold foil T-shirts as the visual extension of an album.

"Clint Eastwood said that he doesn't understand why anyone is interested in the movies he makes, so the reason he makes them is because he feels like Clint Eastwood would be interested in them," Brooklyn, N.Y.-born vocalist Ron Scalzo told Noisecreep. Scalzo moonlights as electro rock singer/songwriter Q*Ball and operates the indie label Bald Freak Music, which boasts Bumblefoot and Swashbuckle on its roster.

Scalzo continued, "Coming from the 'CD generation' of music lovers, album artwork is probably more relevant to us than today's average high school metalhead. We grew up in Jersey and Brooklyn, where showing off your favorite band's album art or logo was like showing off your gang colors. You were judged not only by the length of your hair, but on whose artwork was on your T-shirt or ironed on to the back of your denim jacket. [Iron Maiden's] Eddie, Metallica's Lady Justice, GNR's skull and cross logo -- they all represented something more than just the music to guys like us.

"That said, we've made a conscious effort to shift the aesthetics away from the band members and onto the music itself. We're not Fall Out Boy and we're OK with it. If kids these days aren't interested in the awesomeness of Tool and Nine Inch Nails and cerebral bands like them, we can't do anything about it. Just like Clint Eastwood can't do anything about some dude hating 'Million Dollar Baby.' We just know what we like and what company we'd like to keep."

Scalzo said that 'Automata' is a loose concept album about the constantly blurred line between machinery and humanity, which is depicted in the video trailer. "We thought the idea of the cube representing the ordered chaos of our tunes and the 'man vs. machine' lyrical themes to be fairly bad ass and will hopefully make our fans think a little more than about how great the drumming is. Those who care, anyway," he finished.



'Automata' track list

1. 'Automata'

2. 'You Will Be Replaced'

3. 'Back of My Hand'

4. '1.0'

5. 'Edge of Forever'

6. 'Night of the Exploding Razors'

7. 'Snakeface'

8. 'The Dots Do Not Connect'

9. '2.0'

10. 'The Replicas'

11. 'So Close'

12. 'God at the End of the World'

13. '3.0'

14. 'Exit Wound'

15. 'The Altercation of Man'