''Hex; Or Printing in the Infernal Method'' is the fourth full-length studio album by American

drone doom Drone metal or drone doom is a style of heavy metal that melds the slow tempos and heaviness of doom metal with the long-duration tones of drone music. Drone metal is sometimes associated with post-metal or experimental metal. Characteristics Ty ...

band

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

Background

Marking a new direction the band would follow in years to come, ''Hex'' stands in stark contrast to Earth's previous works. While retaining the extremely heavy doom/drone metal song structure of epic riffs over simple repetitive drum beats, the guitar was inflected with country influences that favored a cleaner reverb-heavy tone layered with acoustic instruments over the band's previous predilection for distortion. The press release cited diverse influences such as

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classic ...

Billy Gibbons William Frederick Gibbons (born December 16, 1949) is an American musician who is the guitarist and lead singer of the rock band ZZ Top. He began his career in the band the Moving Sidewalks, which recorded a full-length album entitled, '' Flas ...

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fu ...

's soundtrack to the movie ''

Dead Man ''Dead Man'' is a 1995 American acid western film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It stars Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Iggy Pop, Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Michael Wincott, Lance Henriksen, Gabriel Byrne, Mili Avital ...

'', country musicians

Duane Eddy Duane Eddy (born April 26, 1938) is an American rock and roll guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he had a string of hit records produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebe ...

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, and

Roy Buchanan Leroy "Roy" Buchanan (September 23, 1939 – August 14, 1988) was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career and two la ...

. Carlson indicated that he viewed this shift as part of a continuum rather than a categorical change in direction: The album was influenced by

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, particularly his novel ''

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''. Every song title on the album is named after a phrase found in the text of the novel. Carlson commented that: Carlson said that "There's an arc to each song and an arc to the album, rather than just a collection of songs. There's silence and a sense of space to the music". The subtitle is from

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

's ''

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''. It was well received by fans of the band and critics alike despite the change in sound. When asked about the elimination of distortion, Carlson remarked:

Reception

Critics acknowledged the sharp transformation in the band's sound and were generally favorable towards ''Hex''. Writing for ''

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'', Austin Gaines described the album as a "surprisingly beautiful instrumental album" that exchanged distorted riffing for "the austere beauty of a telecaster roaming the Western U.S." In ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'', Kevin Hainey praised the album as "an elegant and singular effort filled with sparsely beautiful passages that lead headlong into the void". Within the band's stylistic transformation, Todd DePalma observed in '' Chronicles of Chaos'' "a stripped, damn near ossified sound that yields a more conceptual - and by far the heaviest - album of arth'sstoried lifespan".

Track listing

Personnel

* Dylan Carlson – guitar, banjo, baritone guitar *

Adrienne Davies Adrienne Davies is the current drummer and percussionist of the drone metal band Earth. Davies is credited as drummer on several of Earth's albums. They range from ''Living in the Gleam of an Unsheathed Sword'' (2005) and for drums, percussio ...

– drums, percussion, wind chime *John Schuller – bass guitar *Dan Tyack – lap and pedal steel guitar *Steve Moore – trombone, tubular bells *Randall Dunn – production, harmonica, recording

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hex Or Printing in the Infernal Method 2005 albums Earth (American band) albums Southern Lord Records albums Albums produced by Randall Dunn