5. Earth
This was another album I ran across by a mix of internet sleuthing and just random chance that I stumbled across it at the independent record store that I would go to. It was cheap, so I just picked it up. At the time, I was already a fan of Sunn O))) and I hadn’t listened to any of Earth’s music, all I knew was that they were an influence on Sunn O))) and that if there was an album of theirs that was quintessential then it was this one. At the time, Earth had just come out with The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull and I had listened to that because it was out on Sunn O)))’s record label and I loved that one, that’s still one of my favourites to this day. And I was getting into Hex as well and because of my fandom of artists like Brian Eno, I already had an appreciation for ambient music and metal music too. The album is a very interesting and stimulating experience, seeing where it all came from.
I loved the waves of heavy distortion. I thought the cover art was hilarious, the way it markets it like a new wave album. I believe there’s a funny pull quote from the back of it that says, “This cured my tension headaches”. So the music itself is very serious but the cover art is there to purposely mislead whoever stumbles across it. For an album that came out as early in the 90s as it did, it is a very heavy album. It’s certainly a lot heavier than most that you’ll listen to from that time period. I love how long and meditative the whole thing is, and how these guitar tones that we would normally associate with aggressive, visceral music can be effectively and successfully recontextualised into an ambient space and create different sensations as a result of that. I see the album as a successful re-mapping of metal aesthetics into a totally different style.
