Earthlings?
Human Beans

Earthlings?, as many of you might already know, are the brainchild of three well-known individuals both in the New Orleans rock scene and the legendary Joshua Tree stoner scene.
And in this second album by the band, the collaborations create an extremely varied mix of genres (blues, stoner, psychedelia, rock, electronica, etc.), which takes the listener on a narcotizing journey of dreamlike sounds and tormented visions, led by the "reassuring" voice of Pete Stahl, the obsessive and prominent keyboards of Fred Drake, and the guitars and basses of Dave Catching.

The "cameos" in this intense and, in its own way, physical journey, are the best the music scene has to offer at the moment: Josh Homme lends his voice to the opening track "Visionary Messenger," and his golden hands to play guitar in "Vegan Meth"; Dave Grohl is where he should ALWAYS be, playing drums on "Rock Dove," where (forgive the pathetic pun) you can also notice the guest appearance of Mr. Mark Lanegan himself.

Chuck Berry's cover, "Johnny B. Goode," is made gloomy and anxious by the heavy use of synth and increasingly enhances the sensation of being in a dream from which one cannot, or does not want to, wake up. "Rock Dove" evokes a horror like "Deep Red," while "Vegan Meth" is practically a tribal scream that organically evolves into a mini string symphony, thanks to Petra Haden's step-in on violins.
"Moons over Millenniums," with its livelier rhythms and almost positive lyrics, breaks the "dream" by offering a brief moment of respite, which is quickly interrupted by the classic "Beyond Space Valley" and the frantic "You Will Say," in my opinion, a song for perverse sex.

Pete Stahl possesses an incredibly versatile voice, able to hypnotize, enchant, irritate, and frighten depending on the track. Drake uses keyboards like brushes, to paint dense and viscous, carnal and spiritual images in the listener's mind, and Dave Catching acts as the perfect middle figure for the union of the first and the second, contributing to the creation of post-Floydian and electronic sounds that require attentive and particular listening.

Earthlings? do not write "hits." Despite having individual close connections with much more "famous" bands, Earthlings? stick to their philosophy and make the music they like, a niche without compromises, fully aware that they will never see their band in the "Charts".
This awareness sets them free to experiment and explore different sounds (sometimes creating a totally harmonious pseudo cacophony) and to venture at the same time in totally opposite musical directions. The result, in this case, is an album certainly not commercial, but even more special, emotional, magical, and hallucinatory, which distances itself from the pseudo stoner harmonies of the previous album ("Earthlings?" CDHW, 1999) and dives into much murkier and unsettling waters.

"Human Beans" asks no questions and demands no answers, it simply is. Fred Drake R.I.P. 2002