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Friday Full-Length: Earthless, Sonic Prayer Jam

Earthless, Sonic Prayer Jam (2005/2012)

 

You can’t really talk about Earthless without talking about the live experience — about watching Isaiah MitchellMike Eginton and Mario Rubalcaba wail on their songs and ride to the point of consumption what’s as close to genuinely classic heavy rock as anything you’ll ever find outside of 1973 regardless of any vintage posturing other acts might do. Sonic Prayer was their debut album in 2005, and Sonic Prayer Jam was the subsequent live 10″. Both were released by Gravity Records, and the latter was reissued in 2012 as a 54-minute beast they still basically call an EP — and I guess you can do that kind of thing when you’re Earthless and no one thinks twice about “Sonic Prayer Jam Part 1” being nearly 32 minutes long — and though 14 years later it might seem primitive in comparison to the band that Earthless would mature into being, there are more than a few key signifiers in the audio that remain the core of their approach. Mitchell‘s guitar weaves seamlessly between shred and effects-soaked sprawl. Eginton‘s bass provides the grounding element in its crucial repetitions from which the other players explore outer reaches. And Rubalcaba is not only in-pocket and on-swing, but he propels the proceedings outright. Like, kaboom.

It’s kind of funny how, given how much reverence and hyperbole has been tossed Earthless‘ way especially in recent years, you don’t really hear much about their beginnings. There isn’t much hype around the “origin story.” Rubalcaba was in Hot Snakes and Rocket from the CryptMitchell was in Lions of Judah, and Eginton was in a band called Electric Nazarene. Then they decided to form a band and were in Earthless together. Pretty straightforward, but I guess there’s an important narrative happening beneath that as well in the lack of narrative. Think of it this way: the way that story tells it, Earthless just happened. There was no great band meeting about “what are we going to sound like?” or anything like that. They plugged in, jammed, were able to follow where the songs were leading them and decided to stay there. I don’t know how accurate that is, but it certainly suits the righteous sonic spread the three-piece have conjured over the last decade and a half, and the influence they had on a San Diego-based band boom comprising a generation’s worth of players with an affinity for classic heavy rock that, at least in part, is an affinity for Earthless‘ affinity.

As for Sonic Prayer Jam, how you listen to it depends widely on format. If you get the 10″ — still possible on the secondary market — the set recorded at The Casbah earthless sonic prayer jamon Jan. 3, 2004, is edited. If you get the 12″, it’s edited differently. If you get the CD, which is also the 2012 reissue version, “Sonic Prayer Jam” itself is still split into two part, but the first runs the aforementioned 32 minutes and the “Sonic Prayer Jam Part 2” answers back at 16:55 before they close with “Cherry Red” at 5:31. I’m not sure I’m comfortable calling one definitive and the others not, but the more the merrier, really. Especially in hindsight, the raw, echoing, looping effects and exploratory vibe of Sonic Prayer Jam shows how right Earthless were even at that nascent point in their career, and while they weren’t by any means the first heavy band to offer longform jamming, or even the first American band of their generation to do so, there could be no denying the power of their delivery, whether it’s Rubalcaba punishing his snare as “Sonic Prayer Jam Part 1” noisily transitions into the subsequent second portion or the ultra-tight winding direction of “Cherry Red.” A lot of bands kill it right from the start, but Earthless were Earthless already in 2004 and Sonic Prayer Jam proves it. It was just a matter of everyone else figuring it out.

Their material, especially their studio stuff, would become more plotted, but Earthless have remained keenly aware of what they bring to the stage in playing live, and they’ve done well to continue to represent that. Still, in highlighting an earlier moment for the band, Sonic Prayer Jam nonetheless offers more than academic value for the already-converted. Even if one didn’t know the band or what they were about, it’s the kind of thing you put on and someone says, “Who is this?” Rightly so. The whole point of Earthless even in their early going would seem to have been to blow minds. “Sonic Prayer Jam Part 1” finds them so dug into the proceedings that they barely manage to resurface before shifting into the next phase of the jam, and by tossing out a masterful wash of effects amid extended solos, punctuated with a nigh-on-manic sense of purpose in the drums and bass, Earthless put emphasis on the fact that it was the sheer level of their performance more than any grand stylistic statement that was going to distinguish them over the longer term, though admittedly, they’ve been widely influential in terms of style as well, as manifest in the number of other outfits who try to capture even a fraction of the vitality in Sonic Prayer Jam, some succeeding to a degree, but no one ultimately coming close to what Earthless do and did — as Sonic Prayer Jam shows — even in their formative years.

And yes, “Cherry Red” has vocals. Falsetto vocals, at that. It was legitimately a big deal when last year Earthless offered up Black Heaven (review here) and reshuffled their priorities to feature vocals and more straightforward songcraft, but it wasn’t exactly out of nowhere. And sure enough, Black Heaven had a complementary live outing in later 2018’s From the West (review here), in similar fashion to From the Ages (review here) being followed by a couple of limited live releases or 2007’s Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky being met by 2008’s landmark Live at Roadburn (discussed here), a watershed moment for the band and the growth of their international influence. That’s a set that those who were there continue to talk about. I’d imagine it’s much the same for anyone who happened to be at the Casbah and hung around to hear Mitchell wish the crowd a Happy New Year after the band wrapped up “Cherry Red.” Hell, I wasn’t even there and I’m talking about it, so yeah. Happy New Year.

As always, I hope you enjoy.

It’s my wedding anniversary this week. I’ve been married for 15 years and we’ve been together for 22. Asking The Patient Mrs. to marry me was hands down the best decision I ever made. Nothing else comes remotely close.

Up and down week, as most seem to be these days. Anxiety about the paperwork end of acquiring the ancestral homestead. The Patient Mrs. busy with the new job. The Pecan not really understanding where his mom is after she just had the summer off from teaching, and mad about it. He had a good day or two this week, one hard day and one medium day. We’ll see how today goes when he wakes up, I guess, but that’s kind of how it is at this point every day. We’ll see how it goes. I’m just trying to get through, honestly.

Tonight is Brant Bjork and Ecstatic Vision in Teaneck, NJ. Same place Crowbar and Lo-Pan played a bit ago. They hit Brooklyn last night with River Cult and It’s Not Night: It’s Space, and that would’ve been awesome to see, but no way was I going to be able to go to NYC two nights in a row after about three hours of sleep and hope to enjoy myself whatsoever. I don’t know much about whoever is opening the Jersey show, but whatever. I’ll put the baby to bed and then head out, and yes, see how it goes.

Review of that on Monday along with a full-album stream of the new Goatess and the new single from Witch Mountain, which isn’t a premiere but is exciting nonetheless. Maybe a Bison Machine stream on Tuesday and a Ramprasad track premiere, Wednesday, Cycles of the Damned do a bit of the extreme post-metal thing, and I think on Thursday I’m going to do myself a favor and review the Blackwater Holylight record. Friday I’ll put up an interview I did last week with Parker Griggs from Radio Moscow where we talk about his new band El Perro. That was pretty cool.

I don’t know if anyone listens to those or not, but I’ve been having fun posting them, so whatever.

It’s about 20 minutes before 6AM, so I think I’m gonna leave it there and maybe go crash for a minute. I was so dead on my feet by the time I was doing dishes after dinner last night. The Pecan had woken up and The Patient Mrs. had him yelling on the baby monitor. She went upstairs to his room to check on him and put him back down and I was unconscious by the time she got back. With another late night pending for tonight, every minute counts.

Thanks for reading and have a great and safe weekend. Forum, radio, merch.

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