An Earth concert is an intense, hypnotic journey of droning soundscapes, crushing heaviness and surprisingly poignant melodies with a subliminal country ting. Cosmic yet rooted, esoteric yet mundane, lysergic yet clear, with a hidden but persisting groove, Dylan Carlson's band unfolds its occult progressions at a pachydermic pace to get you to that hazy, transe-like place of destructive logic and familiar discomfort. Earth eschews categorisations because their music is essential and essence doesn't need markers. Essence doesn't need words, which is why they do away with lyrics and vocals entirely. Sound is its own purpose, and distortion because an invocation. What it invokes, and what it evokes, is in the ear and the mind of the attendant. Is it evil? Probably. Is it magic? Undoubtedly. It's also a hundred percent real. It's American Gothic on opiates.