Earth – Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light Pt 1 (2011)

February 25, 2024

Angels Of Darkness… (Pt 1) took the “new” sonic template established on Bees Made Honey… and took it to a more dark, smoky world. As beautiful as tracks such as “Old Black” and “Hell’s Winter” are, the runtime of some of these behemoths, coupled with their sparse, minimal structures and inherent similarities, makes this album a slog to listen to unless it is just playing in the background somewhere.

I can’t give it a low score, because sonically it is fantastic, the musicianship is fantastic and the production is stellar. But in some of the longer songs I am really, really struggling to stay engaged. It doesn’t help that it feels like every single song has the same beat to it. I think the Earth overstretched themselves with the first part of this double album.

TLDR: excellent highlights, but drags in the middle sections.