After the suffocating might of Angel of Darkness, Demons of Light Part 1 in 2010, Dylan Carlson’s ambient doom project Earth have finally unleashed Part 2. It is a 45 minutes, five song set that highlight everything that the current incarnation of Earth does so well. They favour long expanses of emptiness between the sparsely played notes over filling the empty spaces with noise which gives their music a detached melancholy. Opening number ‘Sigil of Brass’ hints at more dangerous music just around the corner, full of wistful gloom. Electric guitars compliment the acoustic ones on ‘His Teeth Did Shine Brightly’. You wait for that brilliant moment of rapture to shine through the bleak clouds but it never comes to fruition. That is what Earth does best; play with the expectations of the listener. Drums and string instruments feature more heavily the further you venture into the album. The rock-solid (but slow tempo’d) percussion on album closer ‘The Rakehell’ perfectly frames the esoteric arrangement of the other instruments. Some might be intimidated by some of these ten-minute-plus soundscapes but they are so gorgeously realised that it makes for a more pleasant pill to swallow. Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Part 2 is a rambling journey through the untamed wilds of the soul.
Rating: B
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