Spectreview: Earth – Full Upon Her Burning Lips

-LIGHT CORAL-

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For almost three decades, Dylan Carlson has attempted to fuse ambience with guitar distortion in his drone metal project, Earth. Since their milestone Earth 2, released back in 1993, they’ve inspired countless acts in once-burgeoning genres like doom metal to stoner metal, all the while unfaltering in their pursuit of cleansing transcendence via low-range guitar frequencies. Full Upon Her Burning Lips, the band’s ninth album, seems to finally wholly embrace the humanity present in their physically-palpable music. The album art says it all: clear portraiture, at last, of band members, with a clear focus on vital percussionist Adrienne Davies. The band’s music leans toward quotidian rock more than ever, with a spellbinding, full-bodied mid-range that lends a hypnotic quality unique to this project. The parts are simple as usual: sustained guitar drones, mirrored bass lines, the slow thump of dirge-like drums. But like many compelling ambient projects, the devil is in the details: the subtle rolls of thunder across titanic opener “Datura’s Crimson Veils” and equally monolithic “She Rides an Air of Malevolence,” the windswept beauty and ruminant harmonic feedback of the slowcore-leaning “Descending Belladonna,” the threatening quiver of the sticky, muted strings lurking behind “Maiden’s Catafalque.” Earth pioneered drone metal by understanding what makes good ambient music and adding the physicality of rock instrumentation, and by exploring that physicality, the band succeeds in adding a certain sensuality to an otherwise ponderous signature sound.

Recommended for tantric, stoned sex.