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Friday Full-Length: Earth, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull

Earth, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull (2008)

If Earth had decided after their 2005 comeback studio album, Hex; or Printing in the Infernal Method, to put out another full-length of similarly-minded Dead Man-inspired Americana desolate soundscapes, I doubt there would’ve been many complaints. I think in some ways the heavy underground is still coming to grips with that album, now almost a decade later, and it has served as a point of influence for many in a wide variety of subgenres probably even more than something like Earth 2 – Special Low Frequency Version did for the band in the early ’90s. Maybe that’s overstating it. Still, you get the idea. No one would’ve argued with Hex Pt. 2.

That’s not the band’s nature, it seems. None of their albums or even their bevvy of live releases splits, etc., really makes any effort toward retreading past ground, and when they released The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull on Southern Lord in 2008, all you had to do to realize how different its character was from its predecessor was look at the artwork. It’s like the color wants to punch you in the face. And the elaborate font of the band’s logo — or the huge one, if you have the vinyl — left a much different, much fuller impression than the stark, grainy black and white of Hex. The music on The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull proved similarly colorful, richly thematic, patient as ever and no less evocative than was the record before it, if somewhat harder to place in time and atmosphere.

More open, in other words. The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull was a powerful development of the ideas presented on Hex; or Printing in the Infernal Method, and while the album hasn’t had the same kind of sonic legacy in the half-decade since its release, it continues to resonate and radiate a rich, human beauty, and I continue to like very much the places it takes me when I put it on, as now.

Tonight The Patient Mrs. and I drove south to Connecticut to have dinner with her mother and grandmother ahead of her birthday, which is next week. Two hours each way and we just got back a little while ago, so yeah, the Earth record is about fitting with my energy level right now. It was a hell of a week, and I feel like I could really, really stand to get out to a show in the next couple days, so I’m going to look around and see if there’s anything I can make happen in that regard. It’s been a while at this point. Feels like too long.

I’ll review whatever it is, should I prove successful in finding something, and look out next week as Ben Smith from The Brought Low will answer The Obelisk Questionnaire, and I’ll have reviews up of Slough Feg and maybe that SunnO)))/Ulver collaboration, since this drone seems to be hitting so right. I’ve done two weeks in a row now of review roundups; one went over decently well and this week’s seems to have fallen utterly flat. Okay then. I’ll give it another go this week and see what happens.

Also look for a writeup on Blackwitch Pudding‘s new vinyl if I can find a way around showing the needlessly sexist album cover, and though I’ll be traveling south (yes again) next Friday and won’t have much by way of posts during the day, I might get a podcast ready to go up so at least there’s something. Hopefully things shake out that I have time.

It also looks like I’ll be going to Roadburn after all. More on that in the weeks to come.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Please check out the forum and the radio stream, because they kick ass.

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