Earth 2

Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version, also known as simply Earth 2, is the first full-length studio album by the American drone metal band Earth. Produced by Earth and Stuart Hallerman, it was released on February 5, 1993, on Sub Pop Records. The album was highly influential in the development of the drone music and drone metal genres. Background At the time of Earth's formation, bandleader Dylan Carlson was conceptually influenced by minimalist composers such as La Monte Young as well the bands King Crimson and Slayer. As a child, Carlson was a fan of classic rock groups such as AC/DC, noting that "when I would hear a song and there’d be a cool riff or a cool part of the song I was always like, 'Oh, what would it be like if they stayed on that instead of moving on to the next part?' Then I read about minimalism and stuff like that. I was like, 'Oh, what if we take a Slayer-style riff and play it for 20 minutes at half speed?' I guess you could say that was my one good idea." The recent advent of compact discs allowed for playing times up to 74 minutes, which encouraged the group to "fill up an entire CD with one song in three parts." However, recording tape only allowed for 30 minutes max at the time, so that the band needed to "sort of splice it or fade it in and fade up, stuff like that" to achieve the longer recording. The group were signed to grunge label Sub Pop, but Carlson explained that "what we did was not grunge and not part of that whole thing. A lot of people I think that bought the records saying Sub Pop expecting something were disappointed." He noted that "luckily I wore a Morbid Angel t-shirt on the back of the album and so metal fans were sort of the first to really embrace what we were doing." Critical reception Celebrated as a "milestone" by Terrorizer'''s Dayal Patterson, he described it as "a three-track, 75 minute deluge of feedback and distorted guitars that marked the blueprint for what lead singer/guitarist Dylan Carlson at the time coined 'ambient metal'".