Earth's master of paranoia and disaster,
Dylan Carlson, has long seemed bent on capturing the sound of aggression, displacement, fear, and loathing through the lens of narcotic painkillers. Or so it seems. Throughout the course of
Earth's output,
Carlson has befuddled listeners with his down-tuned, lengthy excursions into single-note monoliths of songs, his guitar tones droning heavily, hanging menacingly for long spells of time before crashing in slow-motion toward another note or chord progression. The chief problem this time around, as with Pentastar: In the Style of Demons, is that
Carlson's gift for writing riffs never fully lifts from the earth. In other words, there are plenty of excellent ideas -- stellar, half-written song structures that are never granted the proper completion or percussive accompaniment. There are very few people working like this -- save folks like
Caspar Brotzmann or
the Melvins -- with such command of heavy, louder-than-hell guitar playing.
Earth can be frightening, saddening, alienating, peculiar, and more often than not, disappointing. One may listen and wish
Carlson would hammer down on that guitar with a complete, vital rhythm section. ~ Patrick Kennedy