Earth played ONCE Ballroom – 6/18

Drone legends Earth headlined a sold-out ONCE on Tuesday night with support from Seattle’s Helms Alee. 

Dylan Carlson’s mighty, (mostly) instrumental Earth hit the road this spring in support of their new, ninth LP Full Upon Her Burning Lips, and handily sold out their first headlining Boston-area appearance in recent memory. The current trio, a two-guitars-and-drums outfit featuring Carlson and longtime percussionist Adrienne Davies, served up a lengthy set of their hypnotic heaviness focused on that minimalistic new release.

Earth have always trafficked in minimalism, of course, essentially having invented the aggressively accoutrement-free drone-doom microgenre with 1993’s Earth 2, and it’s an aesthetic Carlson continues to explore nearly three decades later. The band’s music remains slow and almost inhumanly patient, rewarding one’s capacity to zone out but never crossing the threshold toward boredom.

There are no guest vocalists or richly layered studio arrangements to be found on Lips – just songs that live and die by Carlson’s subtly evolving riffs and Davies’ measured drumming. Fortunately, the pair are masters of that game, and the record is yet another strong entry in their contemplative late-career catalog whose new songs sounded great alongside a few oldies Tuesday night.

Carlson, who rocked a pair of orange aviators for the duration of the evening, introduced song titles like “She Rides an Air of Malevolence” with all the ceremony of reciting a grocery list, and punctuated long, winding songs with earnest thanks to the packed room (and Widowmaker Brewing for the supplying the “hooch” – their Earth inspired Colour of Poison IPA). It was a nonchalance that factored into the band’s unpretentious charm.

Sargent House-signed trio Helms Alee were a fine match as an opener, powering through an impressive number of their melodic sludge stompers with crowd-pleasing conviction.

Check out photos from both sets below.