RBOTD #187: Traitors Return to Earth
Clicking the 'Random Band' button on Encyclopaedia Metallum
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Traitors_Return_to_Earth/3540332520
Country: United States
Location: Columbus, OH
Genre: stoner/sludge/doom metal
Formed in: 2010
Status: Split-up
By the Numbers
Traitors Return to Earth is the:
54th band formed in the 2010s
42nd band from the United States
62nd band that has split-up at the time of querying
Its genre tags have been seen:
Stoner: First time
Sludge: Fifth time
Doom: Ninth time
Member Connections
Human Incineration, a death metal band from Columbus, Ohio
Tank Destroyer, a stoner/doom band from Columbus, Ohio
Know 'Em?
Nope. I am now 10/187.
Sketch Check
Pass.
RateYourMusic Scores
Traitors Return to Earth's highest-rated release is 2011's Smoke Screen, which achieved a 3.25 average on 11 ratings.
Traitors Return to Earth's adjusted score places it in the 50th percentile at the time of measuring.
Adjusted scores are calculated similarly to the Trad Belt scoring system. Please read that column for more information.
Trifecta Tracker
Traitors Return to Earth did not achieve the trifecta.
A band can achieve the trifecta by titling a song after itself on a self-titled release. Iron Maiden's "Iron Maiden" on 1980's Iron Maiden is an example of the trifecta.
If I had heard Traitors Return to Earth's ironically titled final album, Betting on a Full Collapse, when it was released in 2013, I would've ignored it. Not out of spite, mind you, but fatigue. The early '10s felt like they were so awash in stoner/sludge/doom rehashes that even Scion reached deeper into the underground and sponsored grind bands instead.1 Every day, a new bong toker. Every week, a new customer at Weedeater's dispensary. Diminishing returns for the lot of them. Even the passable stuff was rendered exhausting because there was no respite. It was like smoking sativa at 2am during finals week. There was nothing but stonery sludge until the end of your life.
Now? June 21, 2022? Betting on a Full Collapse sounds fine.
Betting on a Full Collapse sounds fine to me now because, outside of a few progressive-minded acts like Demonic Death Judge, Slomatics, and Rongeur, I've mostly removed myself from the stonery sludge new releases pool. It has been years since I've had a vested interest in how the scene is developing. The effect of this simple choice means tracks like "Human Drone" sound fresher because I'm not going to hear anything else like it this week. I don't have to pit Traitors Return to Earth against 20 other soundalikes, all vying for a premiere post that is bound to underperform, fighting like crabs in a bucket for meager Soundcloud streams.
Time and context have transmogrified this Ohio quartet: Traitors Return to Earth was a new stoner/sludge/doom band; it is now a stoner/sludge/doom band. Losing the "new" makes a big difference. It takes the pressure off of Betting on a Full Collapse needing to prove its right to exist. Nine years later, it just exists. I wouldn't say it's good, but I'm not like, "Why is this in my inbox?" Instead of a retread, time has turned it into just…one of those bands now. It's fine. Whatever.
Of course, I have to wonder: Is my mind playing tricks on me? Was 2013 really as choked with stonery sludge as I remember it being? Well, let's take a look.
Per Encyclopaedia Metallum, here are the number of full-lengths released between 2005 - 2021 by bands with "stoner" and "sludge" in their genre field.2
As you can see, we hit a peak of 97 in 2020, so we're still living in the Great Hot Box Sludgening, I guess. However, check out that jump from 2010 to 2011: 25 to 51. The stonery sludge nearly doubles.
Did that doubling mean much in the grand scheme of metal? Not really. Stonery sludge only made up 0.79% of the total number of full-lengths in 2011. This share peaked in 2020, barely creeping over the one-percent mark (1.04%). Right, we're talking small samples here. To that end, there isn't even a lot of straight-up sludge or stoner in the pipeline.
While there has been a slow increase, with stoner peaking in 2018 with a 5.11% share, it's not like these are massive numbers in the grand scheme of things. That 2018 haul? 442 stoner albums. Compare that to 2,476 death metal albums or 2,552 black metal albums. I'm not sick of death metal or black metal. I am sick of a lot of stoner/sludge. So, what's the deal?
Well, I think it's because many stoner and sludge bands prefer to play it safe, working within the established forms of the styles. To wit, while Betting on a Full Collapse is mostly fine, it's not like I'm ever surprised by what it's doing. It's like, "OK, here's the Grief part," or "Oh yeah, Deadbird was doing something like that around this era."3 Naturally, this is totally subjective, but I wager that few of those 442 stoner albums or 370 sludge albums released in 2018 sound substantially different from each other. That is to say, there's not a lot of room for variation by design. Sure, bands break out of the mold. But, by and large, if you're a stonery sludge band, you're probably going to be a very specific type of stonery sludge band. Death metal and black metal, both basically umbrella terms at this point, deviate more from the norm. This is not a bug. Fans seem to like it.
When you're forced to pick through an unending stream of stonery sludge promos, that lack of variation gets tiring quickly. By 2013, when I was working for numerous zines requiring me to keep abreast of new tunes, I got deathly ill from the sound. Now? I hardly engage with this kind of stuff unless I seek it out. So, Traitors Return to Earth is fine. It only took my full collapse for that to happen.
Rando Observations:
The Traitors Return to Earth Bandcamp includes a pull quote from The Sludgelord back when it was primarily a zine. It's now a label. If you want mold-shattering stonery sludge, it's a good place to find it.
Betting on a Full Collapse's art is by W. Ralph Walters, who did a piece for Pombagira, the stoner doom two-piece from London. My favorite Pombagira record is Baron Citadel, an album that…has all but vanished from the internet. Guessing label shenanigans. It's here if you're curious. Holds up.
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The kerfuffle around Toyota's hip marque buying into metal is so quaint now. It's like when people freaked out about Bob Dylan appearing in Victoria's Secret ads. Shout out to every band that got money off of that venture.
I have written so many of these pieces that I'm not even going to enumerate the caveats anymore. You know them. Yes, Metallum isn't perfect. Yes, a lot of stoner doesn't make it into the database for crimes against metal, or whatever. It's still a repository of 158,325 metal bands.
Grief plus Iron Monkey plus Deadbird plus Weedeater is the general Traitors Return to Earth experience. Just…not good. That's the weird things about comparisons in this space. You end up comparing replacement-level bands to the classics because they're so wholly derived from them. Like, how many awful Electric Wizard clones have you heard? And yet, you're forced to say, "Hey, this band sounds like Electric Wizard." This is bad for everyone involved.