Earth, looking suitably infernal.
Out this evening to the Zion Centre in Hulme to see Seattle drone metal band Earth. I didn’t get to see their performance at the 2005 Arthurfest in Los Angeles but this event made up for that. Support—which we missed due to late arrival—was from Sir Richard Bishop, whose portrait I produced for the last issue of Arthur Magazine.
Earth play that kind of slowed-to-a-crawl metal which has its roots in Black Sabbath (the origin of their name) and Swans. The band have some great album and track titles, among them Thrones and Dominions, Hex (Or Printing in the Infernal Method) and Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine, the latter being borrowed by a drone doom supergroup. Unlike followers Sunn O))), who don robes and fill the stage with fog, the Earth presentation is a minimal one: no vocals, just the music, and no effects, red light only. I’d heard a couple of Earth CDs but what becomes obvious when you see them live is that this kind of music really benefits from loud volume and a good sound system. Both those elements were in place tonight which made for a thoroughly immersive experience.
Earth have a new album out at the end of this month, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, on the Southern Lord label.
I saw this on an RSS feed so the picture didn’t load, saw the caption Earth, looking suitably infernal and thought it was an Austin Osman Spare reference :). (Not that I’m disappointed, I like Earth and wish I’d been at the show.)
Hi Steve, which feed was that? I have hotlinking disabled but make exception for RSS services. I must have missed the one you’re using.
And yeah, Earth Inferno! I didn’t think of that. I’m fairly sure Stephen O’Malley, who does much of the Southern Lord design, is a Spare fan, so that’s fitting.
Good evening back to you. It was on the Livejournal feed,
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/feuilleton2/profile
Not a harm or a complaint, I only remarked on it because the absence of the picture introduced the potential ambiguity, especially given your recent and ongoing posts regarding Spare. As I count myself a Spare fan and an Earth fan, I I was pleased regardless of which of my inferences was correct.
Best regards,
Steve B
Okay, thanks for that, I’ve made the required update. To this day I still don’t know how this page got onto LJ, I certainly didn’t add it. I think it’s a result of other people adding it to their friends or something, it makes you part of the LJ network even though I have no account there.