Earth's 2008 release, The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull, is built on lovely, languid melodies floating effortlessly amidst the band's eye-scratching drone-doom. The long-running Seattle metal experimentalists make music that is arguably the exact opposite of upbeat, but whether it's the presence of fresh blood in the form of Jazz guitar great Bill Frisell and Neo-Prog organist Steve Moore, or something more ineffable, the band is clearly following a new path. Bees Made Honey finds Earth releasing themselves from their sonic hermitage deep within our planet's burning molten core and soaring high above on a wave of lush swirling guitars and organs, stopping just shy of exiting the very realm from which they got their name. This album is monolithic in its beauty and strength.