SilentScream213 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.

siLLy puPPy One of the benefits of grunge toppling the ever stagnating dominance of the glam pop metal scene was that formerly totally underground strains of music suddenly found an audience. Heavily influenced by The Melvins, the Olympia, WA based group EARTH released their debut album in 1993 and created some of the very first ambient metal that would pretty much kick off a whole new subgenre called drone metal. EARTH's music totally bucked the trend for metal to be heavier and faster with ever more complex compositions and impossibly fast solos. EARTH took the most extreme opposite approach and created a type of music that metalheads and punk rockers might listen to while they do yoga or soak in a hot tub or just want to chill out without leaving their favorite distorted music far behind.

This is an album that I find intriguing. The distortion is a satisfying way cool fuzz that feels as if the shadow of the underworld has cast itself in the light and and an impending dread that is simultaneously ominous and relaxing lurks about on every repetitiously decelerated musical motif. I find myself liking this on rare occasion but it is certainly a rare listen that demands the right mood. My main complaint is that if you want to endure the entire album it is quite lengthy with a running time of over 73 minutes. Of course, there is no law that dictates you must absolutely listen to the entire album. I find this kind of ambient metal most effective as a backdrop to other activities but it is entertaining in its own right, however as a nascent stage of drone metal I find EARTH 2: SPECIAL LOW FREQUENCY VERSION lacks enough diverse elements to keep me coming back to it on a regular basis. It is influential for sure but when the mood strikes to listen to this type of music I prefer the later albums by Sunn O))) or Boris. Still though, a must for aficionados of cutting edge ideas in the constant diversifying world of metal music.

Warthur Ground zero for the drone variant of doom metal, Earth 2 is a seminal fusion of the doomiest end of metal with a grungy sort of ambient music, to create a musical soundscape in which guitar riffs last forever and extend off into the horizon, going to who knows where. Like the best ambient albums, it's equally good as music to listen to with your full attention and as a background piece which fades into and out of your consciousness. Not for everyone, and certainly after I'm done listening to it I find I'm in the mood for something faster, but anyone with even a mild interest in drone metal will want this one.

Haze Earths second album, Earth 2, is a hypnotic masterpiece. A genre defining piece of drone metal, responsible for a legion of followers, and the creation of a whole new field of dense escapist metal that was paired back to it's most elemental core. Three tracks, played ultra slowly and spread out over an hour, Earth 2 is an essential work that manages to combine the experimental work of avant-garde minimalist composers with Black Sabbath. Originally released on Sub-Pop in 1993, Earth 2 was essentially unmarketable, but has become a clear cult favorite since. Even the Melvin’s at their height never played anything this slow or this heavy, it’s as ambient as Brian Eno’s early work, and yet heavier than anything that came before, loaded with feedback, fuzz and the magnificence of doom and grimness played as slow it is possible to play. This is mainman, Dylan Carlsons’, masterpiece, he’s gone on to make further Earth albums, and these too are magnificent, although very differently focused. You can’t better this. Without this there would be no Sunn O))), no Corrupted, No Black Boned Angel… the list goes on. Earth 2 gave everyone an excuse to slow it down, make it heavier and to just breathe. Essential.