Earthless Meets Heavy Blanket - In a Dutch Haze

I love this album.

In a Dutch Haze is the appropriately named live album of Earthless's set with Heavy Blanket at Roadburn Festival in 2012. Earthless are a band I've really gotten into since seeing at Primavera Sound in 2015; Heavy Blanket I know nothing about, other than that J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr plays guitar. In January this year, Norman Records had one of their large clearout sales on, and I bought a lot of cool music. One such purchase was this live album.

It's worth noting that this is no regular live album. Over four sides of vinyl we have exactly one song, called Paradise in a Purple Sky. It is an hour long and incredible throughout. Despite only buying it at the start of the year I've already played it more than some albums I bought years ago. It didn't come with a download code, but Amazon or Google Music were selling the digital version of the album for £1 (since it's only one song, and the algorithms haven't yet figured out how to price stoner metal), which was too good an offer to pass up; as a result, it has had a lot of airtime at work. Turns out I get a lot done when listening to heavy, freaky hour-long jams.

Ordinarily I might talk about my favourite songs on an album, but here there are just parts that blow my mind slightly more than others. By the end of the first side they're already thrashing things out and you wonder how they can keep things as intense for the next 45 minutes. About halfway through the second side things simmer down a bit for a while, but Mario is still pounding away at the drums carrying things forward, and even that doesn't last long before they're ramping things up again. It'd be easy to think that one song that lasts an hour might be boring, but that's possibly the most exciting thing about this song - I never get bored, I never think "wow, this has been going on for a while". Earthless write long songs generally, but it seems there is no upper limit for how long their songs can be. And I like that.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 1
Cost: £16 new
Bought: Norman Records
When: 15/01/19
Colour: Yellow
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Earthless - From the Ages

This album is incredible - such perfect psychedelic stoner rock jams. The whole thing is mesmerising. From the first few riffs on the first song I knew I'd made a good choice. You also know you're in for a treat when the first song is an entire side of vinyl. However, for Earthless that isn't enough, so the title track is a whole record long. There's a 5 minute song in the middle, which for this band is a fraction of a normal song. What's quite incredible is their ability to keep me enthralled whether it's a 5 minute song or a 30 minute song.

I got into Earthless quite late - I certainly wish I'd got into them properly much sooner. I first heard their name when I read a Pitchfork review of this album and saw that Mario Rubalcaba from Hot Snakes and RFTC played drums. That, along with the brief description of stoner rock got me interested and I checked out a song. I enjoyed it and made a mental note to check them out further. I forgot about this entirely until Primavera Sound last year when I saw their name on the line-up. I don't remember seeing it on the first few reads but was very pleased when I saw them on timetable on the day. I went to watch them on my own - I can't remember what everyone else was watching - and it was incredible. They played two songs in the their set, each one long, powerful and had me transfixed. Every now and again I'd realise how into the music I was, which would draw me out for a moment, only to be sucked right back in. The same thing happens with the album - I lose track of everything else going on around me and realised I'm headbanging very slowly to the music.

Nearly a year later, I found this in All Ages Records in Camden and very excitedly bought it. In fact, it was most of the reason I'd gone in there - we'd been in a few days earlier before going to see Gorilla Biscuits and I saw they had a copy of Rhythms From a Cosmic Sky; memories of how great the band were came flooding back to me. However, I didn't want to carry any records around with at the gig, so didn't buy it then. I was in London a few days later meeting up with a friend, so I made a special detour to All Ages. They'd sold the copy of Rhythms but had a copy of From the Ages instead. I was pleased to get any of their albums, so bought it along with a couple of other bits. Needless to say, I was even more pleased when the needle hit the record.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 5
Cost: £20 new
Bought: All Ages, Camden
When: 25/03/16
Colour: Red
Etching: none
mp3s: no