Earth-Angels of darkness, Demons of Light 2

Southern Lord
2012



This is the second part to Angels of darkness, Demons of light from Earth. The first part was released early last year and was one of my favorite albums of 2011. Since this band is an instrumental drone band it's not easy to figure what the second part was going to be like. The length of the songs are similar to the first album and there are five on each album. Other than the two albums are rather different. This second part isn't nearly as dark and music is a bit less focused. However those are not complaints. On the contrary Earth use this album to be it's own entity and it certainly achieves that goal. Since there are five tracks it's perhaps easiest if I cover each one individually. "Sigil of brass" opens up the albums. It's rather short at under three and a half minutes long. It's an extremely slow effort that focuses on singular notes and getting the most out of those as well as the echoes they create. It's different for an opener, but in a way sets the mood by letting you know these songs are not going to be spoon fed to you. Instead you have to be a careful listener. "His teeth did brightly shine" comes on next with riffs that somehow have a tone surprisingly like AC/DC with some twang only the pace is of course much more stretched out. This track makes me think of someone going on a long journey. It's not a terribly adventurous song, but the bent notes keep it marching forward. "Waltz (A multiplicity of doors" certainly darkens the mood of the album for the first time. We get seriously deep and laboring tones with rich drum beats slowly thudding along as well. "The Corascene Dog" dog follows and despite numerous plays this was the one song on the album that didn't do much for me. Repetition and drone are a matter of course for Earth. This track had me for about the first two minutes, but then it never really opens or proceeds onto anything that different. For the first time on the album I felt my attention drifting away. They almost get back on track towards then, but this song falls short of the standard set by the first three tracks. "The Rakehell" is a twelve minute closer and again expects some patience from the listener. This one surprised with the mood rather neutral as I was expecting the final track to be either a dark, brooding type track or an upbeat winding song. Instead it just kind meanders around for over ten minutes. The tones are interesting, but the mood is rather one dimensional by comparison to the first three songs. Oddly the last 15 or so seconds of this one have more energy than the rest of the song combined. This album isn't the masterpiece the first part was. It's far more hit than miss, but given the talent of this band it should have been a much better album overall.