999,977: Earth — Omens And Portents 1: The Driver

Earth's 2008 album, "The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull," is a beautiful, slow, beautifully slow work of instrumental majesty. Modern instrumental guitar music tends to be like doing calculus: useless. No one's going to the fucking moon, we just want to relax or rock and get laid. Don't we? I know I do. This record is what would have happened if, when Ozzy left Sabbath, Sabbath had foregone the vocalist and got Brian Eno to produce.

Soundscapes don't always have to sound like deserts (I'm looking at you, Calexico) or airports; sometimes they sound like Pushead rendering the Garden of Eden. Stunning, teeming with life and hope, but built on the backs of mutant skeletons, warped and wracked with pain. Kind of a kin to Brightblack Morning Light, without the Native American hoodoo-voodoo-hocus-pocus.

Omens And Portents 1: The Driv...