Earthless discography
The discography of American psychedelic rock band Earthless consists of three studio albums, two live albums, and various miscellaneous releases, including a number of split albums. Earthless formed in 2001 when its members discovered each other through mutual friends and that they had common interests in music and had similar musical goals. The band released their debut album, Sonic Prayer, in 2005 on independent record label Gravity. Afterwards, Gravity also issued their first live album, Sonic Prayer Jam. Later, Earthless signed with another independent label, Tee Pee Records, and released their second studio album, Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky, in 2007 and their second live album, Live at Roadburn, in 2008. After the release of Live at Roadburn, obligations outside the band led Earthless to go on hiatus; it was not until 2013 that the band released another studio record, From the Ages. Each album released by the group typically consists of at least two very long instrumental songs. Their first two albums, Sonic Prayer and Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky, followed this pattern (the latter with a bonus cover version of "Cherry Red" by The Groundhogs, a conventionally short song with lyrics and vocals, on the CD edition), but From the Ages had four songs, three of which were over ten minutes long and all of which had no vocals. On its CD edition, Live at Roadburn has one track on each disc, but four songs altogether, as there are no track separations on either disc, representing a typical concert performance from the band. In general, their albums tend to be well-received, with most criticisms centering on the sheer length of the songs. In particular, From the Ages was cited as one of the best albums of 2013 by a number of publications but the length of its title track (the band's longest yet) was seen as its primary weakness. Sonic Prayer Sonic Prayer, the band's debut album, was released on April 26, 2005 by Gravity Records. It was recorded at Gravity Studios with producer Matt A. and mixed at Strange Sounds by Gars Wood. "Flower Travelin' Man" was named in homage to the Japanese psychedelic rock group Flower Travellin' Band, and "Lost in the Cold Sun" as a reference to Cold Sun, an obscure psychedelic rock group from Texas. The band would have made the songs longer than their ultimate length of about twenty minutes but could not because the album was recorded on analog tape; drummer Mario Rubalcaba explained that the tape was not long enough to hold more material than that. Allmusic reviewer Thom Jurek remarked that "Droning, thudding space jams are Earthless' trip du jour, and they do it shockingly well." He praised Isaiah Mitchell's "stellar" guitar playing, Mario Rubalcaba's "beat-heavy atmospherics", and Mike Eginton's "repetitive, hypnotic" bass lines while noting the Black Sabbath influences in "Lost in the Cold Sun" and calling the album one of the best in the stoner rock genre. The record received the award for Best Hard Rock Album at