Reviews list for Earth - Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (1993)

Earth's 1993 debut full-length "Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version" is arguably the most important & influential drone metal release of all-time. Interestingly though I've never regarded it as a genuine classic up until now & have always preferred Earth's 1991 debut E.P. "Extra-Capsular Extraction". I think this revisit may have seen me changing my tune though as I've come out of it finding it noticeably harder to deny its classic status than I have previously.

I think there's a couple of reason why I've not managed to get there previously with the most obvious one being that the shortest & most popular track on the album (15 minute opener "Seven Angels) has never struck me as being anything particularly special even though I do find it enjoyable. It's the most traditionally structured of the three lengthy pieces which I feel is probably what makes it the most popular as it's clearly the most accessible but I do think it sounds a fair bit like Tom Warrior & Martin Ain from Celtic Frost testing their rigs during a Celtic Frost soundcheck. Thankfully I'd happily listen to those guys all day long but I can't say that it blows my mind as it seems to me to be incomplete without further accompaniment. Things pick up very quickly though with the 27 minute "Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine" which is a less structured drone metal piece that still maintains some semblance of riffs amidst an almost industrial atmosphere. That's some very solid & outrageously heavy drone metal right there & it's worth remembering that no one else was making anything like this shit at the time. But the real reason that I can't help but gush over "Earth 2" these days is my sheer delight at the half hour monster that is "Like Gold & Faceted" which sees the band completely abandoning traditional rock tools & creating a wonderfully monotonous & highly cerebral journey through the darkest terrain imaginable. I mean this muthafucka sounds utterly triumphant but also as evil as any black metal act known to man. It invariably draws me to conjure up images of Lord Satan himself standing atop a mountainous peak in front of a huge army of his demonic minions & slowly raising his hands to the Heavens while all of mankind is forced to instantly accept that evil has finally overcome the last ray of hope for humanity. I can very easily see what Earth were trying to achieve with this track as it's undoubtedly been modelled on similar drone works from the previous decades but the outcome is absolutely immense, making it by far & away one of the best examples of the genre you'll find. In fact, I'll be fucked if this track alone isn't enough to warrant the inclusion of "Earth 2" in my Hall of Metal Glory so I simply couldn't resist the urge to elevate my score a bit further.

"Earth 2" certainly wasn't made to appeal to everyone but those that "get it" are in for a transcendent experience. I highly recommend the commitment to "active listening" with this one because if you let it become background music it'll no doubt SOUND like background music. Patience is required to wade through the murky sludge in search of transcendence but rest assured that it is in there waiting for you & the rewards easily justify the effort. "Earth 2" was made for a dark room & a good pair of headphones at high volume whilst lying on a bed with your eyes shut. If you let it engulf you then it's actually possible to see the event horizon that Sonny portrayed so beautifully in his review. This should be essential listening for all drone metal fans.

For fans of Sunn O))), Boris & Nadja.

Maybe the first /true/ Drone Metal album, although there’s really nothing metal about it unless metal just means “distorted guitars.” The last track has some bass and drums backing it to sound more metallic and lifelike, the rest is just very simple and slow guitar “riffs” with a ton of distortion.

Earth’s first demos actually had a slightly doomy feel to them, with a full instrument ensemble and even vocals at times. This is, for all intents and purposes, just Ambient Drone. It’s fuzz and noise that is inoffensive and stagnant for over an hour. I can see how it could be relaxing, at the best of times. Problem is, even if I want to relax with some Ambient music, I still want the music to do something. This is essentially background noise, if you lived in an amp warehouse, or a Guitar Center underwater.

Maybe there is some genius in the exact frequencies or textures here, maybe there was some grand blueprint for these no less than 15-minute tracks, or maybe there’s absolutely nothing special to it at all. Either way, it’s not for me.

Well, it's taken 28 years for me to finally get round to Earth's legendary debut. The reason for this tardiness on my part is that my introduction to the band was via 2008's The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull, an album which I found so extremely boring and tedious that the very name Earth became anathema to me. So here we are in 2021 and buried within September's Fallen playlist was the opening track of Earth 2, Seven Angels, which when I heard it for the first time made me realise that I had made a terrible misjudgement of the band, a mistake which I would have to rectify in very short order.

Earth 2 is an album that is virtually impossible to review without resort to metaphor and hyperbole. As these are my preferred modes of expression usually, I don't intend to depart from this norm. This is an album that is as much a tactile experience as an auditory one. I imagine the absolute best way to experience it is through a huge Marshall stack at bowel-voiding volume. I can't escape the feeling that there is more going on than you can actually hear, in the same way as the majority of what's happening in the universe is undetectable to the human eye: gamma radiation, x-rays, infra-red light and dark matter all being invisible to us humans, I suspect that there are sonic waves produced by this that are too low a frequency to be heard and instead are felt, just like when the hairs on the back of your neck inexplicably stand up due to some undetected and unsuspected stimulus. It's almost like the album is a black hole's event horizon that once breached, inescapably draws you further into itself, crushing with unimaginably immense gravitational force for the heaviest experience in the universe.

It is ironic that a band called Earth produce music that, better than anything else I have heard, replicates how I imagine the majority of the cosmos would sound if it wasn't in vacuum. Within it's grooves I hear the death of stars and the demolition of galaxies, for what I can only describe as a transcendental and meditative experience. I'm not sure that any other album has ever launched my imagination onto a more vivid journey than Earth 2. I am fortunate that I live on a north-west facing hillside and get to see some fantastic sunsets. I am already anticipating sitting in a garden chair playing Like Gold and Faceted as the sun begins it's descent below the horizon, and letting the track become the soundtrack to the dying of the day.

Drone metal is absolutely not for everyone and neither is Earth 2. This is atmospheric music that truly is as much sensation as sound. It is very simple and repetitive, but is particularly affecting to those who "get it". Are there any riffs? Not really - well there are, but they are so slowly realised that they appear only as single chords sustained and built upon to amass into nothing less than a natural force. I'm sure there are plenty of people, including fans of doom metal, who find drone in general and Earth2 in particular boring, but for me this album is one of the most profound musical experiences I have ever had. I'm just cursing myself that it took me so long to submit to it's gravity, but I suppose it's better late than never.

As with most kinds of drone music, they leave me with very little to talk about. They claim to be long, elaborated stories, but all I hear is monotonous garbage. With Earth 2, fhis group seems like they took that to heart and tried to create something that was, if not thought out, had meaning to it. This three track affair that clocks in well over an hour, is more of a single, extended jam session. And I can't help but feel that this feeling is to the album's benefit. As one of the few people on this planet who can tolerate and respect a free jazz jam session on occasion, I totally appreciate where this album comes from: the feedback from the guitar that persists throughout the record as Carlson modulates between light guitar riffing and develops them for an extended period of time, before transitioning into the next idea.

Now this being a Drone album means that these ideas do not feel like they are fully developed or elaborated by the time a section ends and the next one begins. In fact, some ideas are elongated beyond the point of repetitiveness, especially on "Like Gold and Faceted". And again, I understand this apart of the appeal of Drone music, and I can appreciate it, but it would never appeal to me outside of some very specific circumstances.

Of all of the Drone Metal albums I have listened to that have been heralded as legendary feats within this subgenre, this is the one that I feel the most comfortable with. Probably not my favourite, but certainly among the higher echelon. As artists like Boris (and more recently Neptunian Maximalism) have taken the Drone Metal tag and transformed it into new and exciting ways, my necessity for "traditional" Drone music has faded. And this record represents the pinnacle of what Drone music is all about.