Wednesday, 31 March 2010

85. Earth - Hex: Or Printing In The Infernal Method (2005). Bees Made Honey In The Lions Skull (2008)




Formed in Washington, Seattle at the start of the 90's, Earth began as a guitar/bass experiment, whereby Dylan Carlson stretched a Black Sabbath/Melvins riff over the course of an entire album, creating a doom/drone metal that sat deeply underneath the grunge mainstream of the period. Carlson then disappeared for 10 years, into heroin no-mans land. During this period Carlson was best known as close friend of Kurt Cobain and also the man who bought THAT gun for Kurt. However crucially during this period, a cult of bands (Boris, Sleep, OM, Sunn 0))) grew around Carlson's innovations spawning a movement of drone metal. Sunn 0))) even named themselves after Carlson's choice of amps.
Earth returned in 2005 with Hex, and instead of the solid drone pieces of yore, were replaced with equally expansive, jazz and country tinged melodies evoking vast sweeps of American landscape and sweetening the isolationist pill. What Earth had previously done for Sabbath they now did for Link Wray, Ry Cooder or Townes Van Sant, letting resonant notes ring out to their conclusion. Even better, in 2008 Bees Made Honey In The Lions Skull added organ and a completeness to tracks that surpasses what other acts have brought to this genre.

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