earth-tongue_photo-sarh-burton

Earth Tongue [photo: Sarah Burton]

Earth Tongue are a heavy-psych-rock duo from Wellington and their debut EP is a monster-truck loaded with solid riffage. Here’s the title track “Portable Shrine”:

Gussie Larkin from Mermaidens and Ezra Simons of heavy-doom-prog band Red Sky Blues are the two Wellington musicians behind Earth Tongue.

There’s a fair bit of early Black Sabbath about this song – the rumbling density of synchronised bass and overdriven guitar, the chugging swing of the riffing repetition, and the human-robot vocals (a distinctive pairing of Gussie and Ezra’s voices).

There’s even some Iommi-esque guitar squwaks as excalamtion marks on the end of the rumbling riffs to provide just the right amount of icing on the sludge cake. All of this is very fine indeed, as is the whole EP.

You can read a bit more about Earth Tongue and the inspiration behind the EP here.