Dylan Carlson is the longtime leader of Earth, the monumentally important Pacific Northwest doom metal band that once counted a very young Kurt Cobain as a member. For decades, Carlson has been making slow, majestic, ominous scorched-earth guitar soundscapes that sound like the world ending. (When we last heard him, he was working with adventurous electronic producer the Bug.) Carlson has also been releasing folk-influenced solo music under the name drcarlsonalbion. And today, Carlson has announced his first solo album under his own name.

Carlson recorded his new LP Conquistador with Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, who doubles as easily the greatest producer of heavy music working today. Emma Ruth Rundle contributed, as did Carlson’s wife Holly Carlson, who also modeled for the album cover. Of the new album, Carlson says, “I guess what ties this all together — all my musical projects and my life in general — is the idea of the quest, that search for new horizons and something unnamable and possibly unreachable.”

The excellently titled “Scorpions In Their Mouths,” one of the album’s five tracks, is the first thing that Carlson has shared from the album. It’s a deeply fuzzy psychedelic-guitar zone-out that evokes visions of vast, merciless deserts, and it stretches out over six minutes. Listen to it below.

Conquistador is out 4/27 on Sargent House.