EARTHRIDE, Something Wicked (2010, Earth Brain)

The skull:
Surrounded by flowers, bugs, and branches, a ghostly skull with enormous eyes blends into the grass. Maybe the skull is the grass. Woah. Think about it, man. I mean, like, really think about it. You know?

The music:
Fuzzed-out bellbottom doom, like Obsessed meets Electric Wizard, but worse. The singing is terrible, and the guitar tone approaches “all-time-worst.” You can practically hear the mustaches, too. Every now and then they land on a chord progression with some genuine mystery, but the execution and sound are so rotten that those few fleeting moments of inspiration are squandered in a haze of Sunn amplification and poorly doubled vocals. If I never hear another album like this, it’ll be too soon, but I bet it’ll happen in less than two weeks anyway.
— Friar Johnsen