Along with that deluxe vinyl reissue of Earth's Bees Made Honey..., we've also got the new vinyl reissue of Earth's previous album Hex; Or Printing In The Infernal Method, the band's first for new label Southern Lord and the first new album from the legendary drone-metallers since 1996's Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons. This was where Dylan Carlson and crew first brought us their widescreen instrumental prairie-psych, and won them an all new audience among fans of moody post-rock and dark slowcore. The first pressing of Hex on vinyl sold out before I was able to get it in stock for the shop, so this new 2014 repress is the first time I've ever had this fantastic album in stock on vinyl here at Crucial Blast. From what I can tell, the packaging for this latest edition is the same as the first, gatefold jacket with alternate artwork from the CD version, and it has that bonus untitled track on the d-side that's exclusive to the vinyl release, a long track of haunting tundra ambience that features additional percussion from guest players Brad Mowen (The Acc�sed, Asva, Burning Witch, Master Musicians Of Bukkake, etc.) and John Schuller (Master Musicians Of Bukkake).

Here's my old review of this album from when it first came out in 2005: The long-awaited new album from seminal drone heavies Earth opens with something akin to a spaghetti western fugue, massive and stretched out, spacey and spacious, a druggy western/post-rock dirge that's dreamy but desolate, ominous and shuffling, a deeply mesmerizing meditation of simple, spare drumming and heavily drenched in reverb, heavy but not "metal", guitars (including lap steel), all unfolding into a haunted ghost town lament and twangy desert post-rock. Very beautiful and slow and mysterious, like Codeine and Calexico, Low and Sixteen Horsepower, a western Mazzy Star or Godspeed You Black Emperor , that sort of clean, undistorted-but-heavy, emotionally heavy, combined with Ennio Morricone style invocations. Uncoiling melodies dissipate across darkened crimson skies, and mighty swells of instrumental gloom shake under the dust of ages. Listening to this conjures images of scorpions resting on sun baked rocks, of tumbleweeds and rusted out cars, rural decay and wide open skies as far as the eye can see. A whole new type of heavy, droning Americana. Fans of Earth's earlier, heavier drone metal may be baffled by Hex, but for those of us who are just as much in love with Earth's Thrones and Dominions and Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons albums, where Dylan Carlson and company began charting more melodic, post-rock/psychedelic waters, this feels like a natural evolution, a breathtaking new chapter in Earth's storied career, and is just as heavy as anything that has come before. Highly recommended.