Earth came around in the early 1990’s with a sound unlike any other. ‘Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version’ gave birth to the Drone-doom genre and cemented Earth a place in Metal history, be it just in the underground. Bands like Sunn o))), who started off as an Earth tribute act, and Jesu later took their own spin on the genre but are very much in debt to Earth. Throughout their discography Earth have made slow transition into Americana and, simply, experimental music. With their new album, ‘Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Pt. 2’, Earth take on a new turn of events.
While still resonating the same repetitive structure of drone, this album is for removed from the genre they helped pioneer. Influences on this album come from as far wide as jazz, heard on the fragmented bass lines, and soundtrack music, which is encased in the albums overall sound. This album isn’t an aural assault of fuzz and bass but a solemn scene documented by the band. Instead of conveying a dark and treacherous atmosphere, wading through the bogs of sludge, this albums set down an odd sense of neutrality. The neutral nature creates its own unease in a world of unknowing. Take ‘His Teeth Old Shine Brightly’ for example; you’re in an old saloon, cigarette ablaze, while the whole scene is encompassed in a drop of grey, nothing is particularly wrong but you know something is offset. This unease is scraped across the whole album and that is what the album’s sound conveys.
Space plays a big role in this album. Instruments play unfinished lines with no inclination of such and phrase lengths come across as odd, as if they’ve been stretched across an iron maiden and left disfigured and bruised. These features add to the albums sense of dismay and worry and the whining strings that weep their way through the depths of these pieces, hiding behind the sparse and overbearing pounds of the percussion, tap into the depths of your sorrows.
Another way to describe the album would be by comparison to the artwork. The artwork, which is superb in its own right, portrays a tribal battle scene, giving off elements of South America. While the album doesn’t fit the chaotic events of a tribal war it does fit the aftermath; a sea of bodies amass on the flour, men consoling themselves over what they seen and what they have done and a crimson tide set across their own friends and brothers. This album perfectly fits that snap shot and Earth set the scene with ease.
This record is very much a sit down album. Not in the sense that you’ll only fully or truly enjoy it if you give it your full attention but that you don’t then you won’t enjoy it at all. There’s just so much beauty and intensity packed into the small ensemble and that transforms itself in this dense and thick recording. This is the album depression, cigarettes and a bottle of bourbon were made for.
8/10
ENJOI
