Album Review: Earth - Pentastar: In The Style of Demons

Earth open their third album, released in 1996, with the aptly named Introduction, where Dylan Carlson's layers of heavy guitar play a vaguely Screaming Trees melody (reprised at the end as Coda Maestoso In F(flat) Minor).  This track, like most of the others sticks to the Earth template of slow, head-nodding tempo with great slabs of heavy, repetitive guitars piled on top.  The 'feel' of the music takes precedence here over anything else. 

Carlson takes an understated vocal on the gloriously ragged, rough guitarfest of High Command and Tallahassee, which are both in a similar vein.  It's not oversamey either, Crooked Axis For String Quartet has a more ambient, widescreen feel and also the creeping, clean guitar of Charioteer is something else entirely.  Later they transforms Jimi Hendrix's Peace In Mississippi into a heavy Earth pounder.  Penulitmate track Sonar And Depth Charge is slightly out of step with the rest, consistingly mainly of two piano chords and little else over seven minutes.  But it doesn't quite derail the album, which is as solid an Earth album as anything else in their catalogue.