Now Wakes the Sea follow a vaguely shoegaze method of music making, in taking simple melodic songs and transforming them into otherworldly soundscapes through the atmospheric use of noise and effects.
Added to this though is a keen sense of structure, with contrasting loud-quiet dynamics and shifting song-sections, as well as an intimate fingerpicking, heart-on-sleeve-wearing singer-songwriter delivery which reveals the origins of the band as the solo project of guitarist Alan McCormack.
Earth have gone through many different but clearly connected reincarnations; there’s the sludgey ooze of Earth 2, the blues meditations of Pentastar, the atmospheric acid-western soundtrack of Hex and the cello driven folk-rock of Angels of Darkness.
Tonight, Earth present themselves as a disciplined, minimal unit, creating a sort of zen rock which is as solid and grounded as their namesake.
The rhythms are as slow as you’d expect, but also rigorously metronomic, stripped bare of groove and distraction.
There is no fiddling with effects either, zero vocals, the cello is gone and the volumes stay steady, the trio never faltering from their monolithic unity.
Here, there is one tone, one riff, one beat, ONE Earth.
Words: CR Sanderson
Photos: NGP
