Earth Ball: It’s Yours LP (Upset the Rhythm, 2024)

August 18, 2024 at 5:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Earth Ball: It’s Yours LP

British Columbian group Earth Ball are a quintet who play heavy, noisy, improvisatory music that doesn’t feel constrained by any category. Opener “Moon FM” is like a Bardo Pond-style heavy psych jam but with skronking saxophone replacing some of the distortion. And then “Antifreeze” is the type of free jazz where it’s like a spirit is making the musicians contort their bodies to force all these erratic sounds and movements out, before a swarm of noisy guitars take over, along with some almost shamanic shouting. “Through & Through” doesn’t get as intense, it kind of stalks and scorches but doesn’t combust into chaos. “A Need to Cool Down” seems like it’s meant to throw your brain multiple directions at once. The drums stumble and collapse, the panned guitars sound like machines being smacked and they’re constantly shooting out sparks, and both vocalists are bounding at you and trying to corner you. And then it rides into this peppy garage rock rhythm, taking flight after it seemed like it was going to fall out of a tree at first. “Flash in the Pan” seems to land on its pounding rhythm after flailing around in a swamp, and ends up with this squonky sax-drenched “Poptones” groove. “Hollowgrama” is another barely contained free jazz splatter which eventually does manage to settle down and make sense of itself. Earth Ball’s unbounded, free expression deserves to be played at the highest possible volume so that their unnaturally high energy levels are felt by your entire body.

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