I’m a johnny-come-lately to this band, really. I’d love to say that yeah, I bought this on the day it came out in ’92 after following Earth’s early progress through hip underground clubs and fanzines – but no, that just wouldn’t be true. I got into Sunn o))) a few years back, instead, and pretty quickly heard about how they started life as an Earth tribute act before going off down their own unique, doomy, droney, brilliant route. I first heard Earth supporting Sunn o))) on the Thekla in Bristol, some time ago. Now that was a gig – the headline set being possibly the loudest one I’ve ever experienced, just unutterably intense, relentless and terrifying. I’m ashamed to say that I had to leave before they were done, fearing my poor head would cave in.
Anyway, Earth supported, and on that night sounded like a drone-country act. Interesting, yes, but not the revolutionary masters of sound that I’d expect Sunn o))) to have based their early career on. But now I have hindsight, I realise that I was listening to late-period Earth, and that their early releases, like this album, are much more what I was hoping for. Massive, droning arcs of guitar hum and feedback, this album sounds magically invoked rather than being the result of humans playing guitars in a recording studio. I don’t know if they were the first band to take traditional heavy metal/hard rock music and stretch it waaaaaaaaaay out in order to reveal its inner workings – I’m sure there are endless aficionados who will name acts of this ilk that came before – but within my own self-taught chronology of recording history this is pretty exciting, special, original stuff.
A side note: On the way to that Thekla gig I walked past Earth’s Dylan Carlson in the street, and felt a shiver of excitement – not because it was the guy from Earth, but because it was the heroin guy out of that Kurt & Courtney film. Isn’t that tragic?
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