After hearing all the nostalgic hype of this (mainly from TND), I decided to review this also, as it is a classic. It's definitely not widely considered a classic, but to fanboys of doom metal/epic doom/stoner doom/sludge doom/funeral doom/drone doom/death doom/black doom, you can't own any of those Sunn O))) or Boris albums without owning this.
The first three things that may come to your mind when seeing this at a record store would be either "Is this an Earth, Wind, and Fire solo side project?" or "Maybe this is some awesome ambient stuff, thanks Eno!" or "This is just about the worst band ever." Sub Pop may have been one of the worst labels to put this out, or it may have been one of the best. Why? To explain the former, think about how many people follow the Sub Pop catalog. Around '93, all they were listening to was grunge, grunge, and grunge. Earth 2 would probably surprise a Sub Pop fan if they heard it. Plus, Dylan Carlson is the guy who gave Kurt Cobain (from Nirvana, also a Sub Pop band) the gun he used to kill himself. That probably gave him a really bad reputation to say the least. And to explain the latter, it does get both recognition and good CD/LP pressing. Even fans of what was "ambient" back in the day wouldn't find this listenable. But nowadays, this record is extremely listenable to drone fans to say the least.
It only consists of three tracks, but the entire record is over an hour long. Every track contains the sounds of two dudes riffing it in their garage. Just a guitar and a bass. There may be some drums, but if so, they're very faint and hard to hear. Think of it as just your average metal album, without drums and being a little more atmospheric sounding than usual. It's very repetitive and goes on for quite a while, almost making it an endurance test. It may be a downside, but the album is a pure masterpiece and a revelation in today's music.
Love this. One of the greatest albums of all time. I'd get on camera and say that:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIeJ1RNDVWQ