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Earth are probably better known to most as the godfathers of a form that executed the complete devolution of music into only a little more than pure distortion and phase; a consequence of downtuning the guitars to new levels, removing the drums, removing the urgency and generally just aiming for a kind of low, brimming evil portrayed in sonic form.
Sunn 0))) took their name as a nod to the band, and in general Earth’s Earth 2 is credited - alongside Melvins’ Lysol, as previously written about - as being the key influence on the whole strain of drone/stoner metal best exemplified by Sleep’s Dopesmoker or Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone; long, drawn out melodies, incredibly slow tempos (for metal anyway), and just a sense of enduring reverie to the sheer weight of the power chords therein.
(Quick aside: I should give a quick mention to the recent reissue of Earth 2, which sported some phenomenal remixes courtesy of The Bug, Justin Broadrick and Loop’s Robert Hampson, among others. Check it out.)
If there was a problem with Earth 2 as an album, it’s that it arguably left the band with few places to go. Albums Phase 3: Thrones and Dominions and Pentastar: In The Style of Demons followed, but I suspect I wouldn’t be alone in saying that they paled compared to their predecessor, and lacked the originality and bite that Earth 2 had delivered.
Like a lot of bands then, it felt as though Earth had delivered their hugely influential masterpiece, and that was that. After the Pentastar album, the band went on hiatus, largely due to bandleader (and often sole member) Dylan Carlson’s struggles with heroin.
With Sunn 0))) appearing to fill the drone metal space, Earth very much seemed like a spent force. That is, until everyone - myself included - was confounded and blown away by the band’s return opus: 2005’s Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method.
Where the first phase of Earth was a celebration of heaviness, of distortion and the almighty power of that sound, Hex pivoted into a new space entirely. Describing the sound is something I have always found hard. Once when someone pushed me for a word to sum it up, the best I could offer was the hopeless non-adjective “rangey”. My good friend Pete did a better job than me, describing this record as “sounding like the plains at night” - and I thank him for that, not least for providing me a sub-heading for this piece.
So why the difficulty in describing it? I suspect it is largely because the record is plotting a whole other course entirely. One might argue that any trace of Earth’s metal-ish origins were largely absent by this point, replaced with a lightly distorted guitar that instead somehow evoked deserts, other wide open spaces and those aforementioned plains at night.
Americana and country have definite presence in this album, though ironically (given they were not of US origin) a possible musical antecedent of sorts would be Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western soundtracks, though even then I’m not sure playing one followed by the other would fully elucidate anyone.
There is an unhurried approach that really sets Hex apart. Slow, slowwwww tempos remain the one carry over from the previous incarnation of Earth, and once again, this is music whose tempo somehow forces you to slow yourself down in order to tune into it. The drums move the songs along… but only just.
So what exists in the spaces between the notes? Ambience, atmosphere and a dense sensation of drama creep in. Not in a foreboding manner; this isn’t a record of tension and release, at least not in the metal sense. In Earth’s world, this slow, considered celebration of a song is just normal. To most other bands, I’d imagine it would simply evoke confusion as to why the tempo was about half what anyone else would play it at.
This, however, is why the album is so brilliant.
I love albums that demand investment. The best records arguably shouldn’t be fully appreciated and understood on the first listen; they require a few goes to really peel back the layers… and when you do, the reward is all the greater. That is why Melvins’ Lysol is so incredible, and so the same applies to Hex.
Unlike Lysol however, Hex is steeped in ambience. As fourth track Left In the Desert starts, you hear the wind blowing around buildings, and wind chimes sounding out. It is the sound of dust blowing across the ground in a place that feels oddly barren and nocturnal.
Playing so minimally requires considerable skill. There is a restraint required that I could never see myself maintaining. The urge - especially among any person loving heavy music - is usually to unleash that inner rage and go all out: crank up the volume, crank up the distortion and fuck it, let hell loose!
Hex goes the other way: it is a reflection of Dylan Carlson’s own evolution of thought, resisting that urge to devolve to the baser elements, and instead hold to the slow tempo and deliver a masterwork of control over both the music and maybe one’s own desire to deliver the adrenaline shot so much music aims for.
This, to me, is why Hex works so well. Some music aims to raise your pulse by getting you either excited or galvanised and angry. Other music aims to relax you; to act as a kind of aural massage therapy and soothe your soul. Hex does neither: it simply delivers phenomenal depth and ambience in a manner that you find yourself giving into and getting lost in. This is a record provoking emotional response without resorting to the two things an album like Earth 2 relied upon: power and volume.
Arguably, Hex might be a weird kind of antidote to today’s society. These songs would never wind up on a Spotify playlist; there is no quick fix to be had here and songs often exceed the seven minute mark in duration. This is music for introspective teenagers getting stoned in their bedrooms. It is an album to contemplate the world with. Somehow, it manages to do that whilst conjuring all manner of images of America’s more deserted spaces, dust devils and all.
If Hex has any kind of relative in the music space, it is - perhaps unexpectedly - Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack. There’s a similarly vivid aspect to both, though the latter is obviously aided by the film of the same name being the muse. Nonetheless, the deep use of ambience, the minimal, lightly distorted guitar playing, the unfussy production and accompaniment, even the tempo are all thinking along similar lines, at least to this writer.
Earth have gone on to release a number of great albums. Pete, the person responsible for the sub-header to this piece, holds Hibernaculum, the album that followed Hex, as his personal favourite, and critics raved about 2009’s The Bees Made Honey In the Lion’s Skull. All are along the same kind of lines as Hex, and all are worthy of your time. For me though, Hex is the high point.
In closing, one album I’d definitely recommend, if only because it saw Carlson collaborating with another of my favourite artists, Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, is 2017’s Concrete Desert. This took the desert sound of Earth and fused it with Martin’s own formidable talents with rhythm, ambience, low end and immersion, creating an album apparently inspired by the sprawls of Los Angeles that updated Hex into a kind of dystopian vision of the future that is utterly bewitching. Make time for it; it is another keeper.