To adequately begin to describe the noise that is Son of Earth, one must be willing and ready to embrace what can only be described as the sound of plate tectonics, or the drone the earth?s crust makes when continents shift slowly and deliberately toward each other, as continents are apt to do over the course of billions of years. Aptly named, Son of Earth appear to be the metamorphic bastard children of the earth?s endless march of reinventing land mass, and their new album ?Pet? presents itself as one of the infinite grains of sand that gets lost in the swelling waves of the ocean when the earth, in sub-oceanic volcanic vomit, spews out lava, hardened into rock.

?Pet,? certainly not made to listen to at parties, is a personal affair, intended to enjoy alone at excruciating volumes, or, better yet, in those public moments when you can be anonymous with your headphones (the beauty is that you will have to find a way to make this transferable ? it?s an LP only release).?Pet,? beginning with ?pre-earth pt. 2? builds on itself; there are organic sounds, amplifier noise, droning guitar, and twisted electronics. The album is highlighted by the second piece on side A, ?an elegant use of foliage and grace.? What I like about this track is indicative of the whole record; it?s a snapshot of a moment in time that, as soon as over, has passed, but, through a random sequence of events, could certainly happen once again. ?an elegant use of foliage and grace,? like the other tracks, is an improvisational shell, meditative music for outsiders and weirdoes. This particular track, nearly the entire side, begins quietly and builds until a crescendo of feedback emerges. It?s a eureka moment, a moment of awareness before the track whittles back to its quiet roots. The side ends, the listener shakes himself free of his thoughts, gets up, flips the record, sits back down and, as luck would have it, gets more the same. Sometimes variety is seriously overrated.

The folks at Apostasy Recordings tend to seriously limit the number of records they press. If you?re interested, you better get on this, as it will vanish, hopefully emerging in the bins of your local used record shop, but probably not. Why take the risk? It is possible that in some future other life, someone will make a record that sounds like this, possibly even a record with the exact same sounds, the exact same frequencies. Time will only tell if we?ll be around to hear it. 8/10 -- Neale Gay (22 August, 2007)