Lista de Bandas Drone Earth (USA) Extra-Capsular Extraction

Earth are one of my favourite bands. Well, now they are. I used to find some of their drone to be overly oppressive, and not easy to enjoy unless you were in the mood (i.e. chilled out and receptive). With their last release, 'The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull', Earth showed me how much I could actually love them. Its titanic shifts in tone, coupled with simple, Americana infused guitar work, is simply awesome. So when I discovered their debut EP for a paltry £4.80 online, I had to purchase it.

At only 27 minutes long, it's remarkably short for an Earth release, and while featuring Kurt Cobain on guest vocals (a rarity in Earth's discography) may seem gimmicky, this was released way before 'Nevermind', and longer before Earth's Dylan Carlson lent Kurt his shotgun... The opening tracks 'A Bureaucratic Desire for Revenge Parts 1 & 2' are different from your normal Earth drone track, having noticeable percussion and vocals in them. They feel almost like a slow burn intro to the titanic 'Ouroboros is Broken', a much more conventional early Earth track. The two tracks offer what you expect from Earth: slow doom riffs that repeat almost endlessly with slight changes in tone and texture, only coupled with a thudding, tribal drumming and some background screaming over Carlson's monotonous vocal line.

This leads up to the massive 'Ouroboros is Broken', 18 minutes of rumbling drone but presented in almost a more song like structure than say, anything from 'Earth 2'. It is more doomy than drone, however the constant repetition of the same chord progression betrays the direction they would take later. When the percussion disappears about halfway through, it becomes a more familiar sound, and waves of droning, three note chords wash over the listener. It is surprisingly soothing.

'Extra Capsular Extraction' is an excellent snapshot of a band who know what they want to do with their sound, but are still new enough to tinker with elements to create what they want. Much more palatable now than it would have been in 1991 when it was originally released, it is the sound of a band starting out with little idea of the influence they would eventually have, but with no qualms about doing it anyway.