On The Verge

Earthless

San Diego, California
Cosmic Monsters of Rock
www.myspace.com/earthless

An Earthless show is basically one long, pummeling, punishing power trio jam. These are the unborn gods of rock radio, ready to spring fully-formed from Zeus’ head. Think of those Hendrix and Cream live sides that hit the verses then blast out into mastodonal stretches of headbanging, tongue-wagging, air-guitar-on-the-steering-wheel thundercrunch. Earthless inhabits that space between. The mostly-instrumental trio formed when drummer Mario Rubacalba (Hot Snakes, Rocket from the Crypt) and bassist Mike Egington (Electric Nazarene) discovered each other’s collections of Japanese hard rock blues and German krautrock records. The first colossal garage jam with guitarist Isaiah Mitchell (Nebula, Drunk Horse) led from Sabbath to Zeppelin to hardcore epiphany—and a riff-anchored, long-form improvisational approach to the heavy and the cosmic. The new double LP Live at Roadburn captures their unexpected headlining set at The Netherlands fest where they hammered through their first two albums for 90 minutes, non-stop. They played so hard, for so long, Rubacalba recalls, that his kick-pedal foot cramped up mid-set. “Mike was cracking up because I was standing up, trying to stretch my calf out and bending over—he thought I was taking a bow for the crowd.”