Fabio Orsi – Stand Before Me, Oh My Soul 6.8

                Here’s a weird one: Fabio Orsi. This is a strange album with multiple moods, from spaced-out to threatening. Fabio does many things on here, most of them quite loudly. Silence or quiet isn’t a thing you’re going to encounter on here. Yes, it is ambient the way noise can be considered ambient. 

                There are several different moods to go through on here. We have the spaced-out jams and drum loops of the first three songs. I first started playing them not realizing how loud they got and almost got blown away. Volume is important. For this group, I like how these songs glide away but unfortunately they don’t hit me as anything particularly interesting. All three of them appear to have been sanded away, leaving only a very neutral presence (excluding loudness).

                I love the two in the middle. “Full Metal Flat” and “My Awesome Drugs Propaganda” are fantastic. Had the rest of the album been this amazingly threatening I might have loved this album. It brings its evil intentions quite perfectly. Both are loud, punishing, and hint at a potentially more brutal sound. After both of these had ended, I wonder what kind of album this might have been had Fabio Orsi explored this impulse.

                Finally the ending lets us off easily. “Soon I’ll be home” expands into near nothingness and throws away the drums that had been so prominent with the rest of the album. Personally had this album explored the evil instinct in the middle (almost a doom metal instinct) I might have enjoyed it more. As it stands, it is still an interesting listen.

Earth – Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1 8.3

                Though I’ve written about Earth’s music before (here) I failed to capture his more recent period. Starting with “Hex, Or Printing in the Infernal Method” the project has taken a new approach. Rather than focus exclusively on the hopeless decay of walls of hiss and feedback, the new period is marked by a more optimistic vibe. I’m not implying Earth has gotten poppy or happy, but it gets pretty difficult to outdo him in bleakness.

                As I started this album, I immediately felt certain classical bits I hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps that’s due to a cellist this time around (Lori Goldston, former Nirvana cellist) but I feel Dylan’s grow more willing to let this side show. Of course, he’s always referenced La Monte Young’s work as an influence, but you feel it here with the swirls of sound.

                Lumbering through at their trademark molasses pace, I noticed how they at times evoke a heavier version of Dirty Three. Those dramatic tempos, the grandiose heavy guitars, all conjure up images of heading through a near endless space. Plus, the sound is considerably heavier than their most recent 2008 effort “The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull”. 

                Oddly, it feels like the most hopeful music I’ve heard from them. I get the image of walking through a cold winter with the sun shining brightly, going up a hill. Where I get such an image is from the crystal clearness of each track, whether it be the emotive tones of “Descent to the Zenith” or the pitch-perfect closer “Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1” They’ve cast off whatever pretenses of metal they had. Now they’ve fully embraced the “Spaghetti Western” style they’d been flirting with for so long. 

                If you’re approaching this as a doom metal album, you’ll be disappointed. Rather, a better way to think of this would be a classical/drone album. As a bonus, there’s going to be a part II of this released sometime later this year.

Earth – Earth 2 9.5

Following up on the apocalypse theme that runs through so much of the writing on here, I present to you the wonderful sludge doom metal that is Earth 2. Dylan Carlson actually has been responsible for a lot of great stuff under the Earth moniker, but this is easily the best stuff from his early, doom-infused early period before he went towards happier environments.

Part of the appeal of this record is how quickly it drags you in. When interviewed about his influences, Dylan mentioned La Monte Young as a source of inspiration. Listening to the intensely repetitive almost hypnotic structures you do get a sense of a vast space similar to those created by that pioneer. Except here there’s a much bleaker tone due to the excessive threat, feedback and fuzz.

“Seven Angels” starts things up right. This is loud music. Play it loud. Experience it loud. Towards the end of the song all the sustained feedback and fuzz starts creating these interesting overtones that seem to quietly wail. It is excellent.

Deeper tones are explored in “Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine”. Each song (there’s only three) are edited together to make it feel like one continuous pace. The dynamics of every piece only contribute to this feeling. A slow pace mixed with similar focuses make the atmosphere positively oppressive (this is the greatest compliment I can give this).

The closer “Like Gold and Faceted” ends things on a meditative note. Somehow slower than the other two, this one has no melody whatsoever. Barely a riff is present; it is almost pure unaltered droning that expands into infinity. A drum comes in, but it moves at such a slow pace that it feels more like painting than any sort of rhythm. 

If you wanted to know how the band Sleep or Sunn0)))) were inspired, here’s the place. A burly half-insane Washington State resident made this wonderful stuff possible.