30 year reissue of Dylan Carlson and co.’s ’96 drone doom masterwork, still packing thee heaviest riffs this side of Sunn O))) and Black Sabbath - from whom they cadged the name, Earth. If there was a doom drone rock hall of fame, ‘Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons’ would be mantled in there along with Earth’s preceding Subpop sides, ‘Earth 2 (Special Low Frequency Version)’ and ‘Phase 3: Thrones and Dominions.’

The 1996 album would mark the end of an inspirational run that effectively reduced heavy metal to its bass elements whilst managing to not slosh out the baby with the bathwater; maintaining umbilical links to the blues and heavy rock via its alchemic mutation at the hands of Brummie yobs, and subsequent afterlife in their native north west corner of America. Between the anticipatory guillotine riffs of their crushing ‘Introduction’ and its reprise in ‘Coda Maestro In F (Flat) Minor’ (which was also later remixed, surprisingly subtly, by Autechre), they churn up pure, slow-motion heck on the swag of ‘High Command’ and single “hit” of ‘Tallahassee’, bleaching out into darkly sublime drone tension with ‘Crooked Axis For String Quartet,’ before steering the sound to medieval folk on ‘Charloteer (Temple Song),’ and stark piano chamber musick of ’Sonar and Depth Charge.’