Friday 2 March 2018

SATURNIST ~ THE HORNS, TEETH & THE HOOVES .... review


When a band pre-describe their sound as "low, loud and lingering" followed by the words "evil assed riffs" well you've just got to sit up and take notice. Thankfully doomanauts Saturnist, a trio from Helsinki, Finland more than deliver on those claims with their intense and uncompromising debut "The Horns, Teeth & The Hooves".


Dank, cloying, dark and intense are just some of the words that immediately spring to mind as title track "The Horns, Teeth & The Hooves" crawls from the pit and makes its presence felt, its growling heavily distorted bass heavy groove enhanced by crunching low tuned guitar riffage and slow pounding percussion, giving the song a claustrophobic almost suffocating feel. Now that might sound a little daunting and off putting to some, especially when those elements of enclosure are twined with monotonic vocal melodies and relentless heaviness, but this is "doom" we are talking about here and this is exactly what we look for and applaud in this genre of music. There is plenty to applaud too as Saturnist take you by the hand and lead you down flame licked paths to a soundtrack of slow, low gnawing riffage and pummelling rhythms signposted with titles like "Graves", "Abyss" and "Mouth Of A Serpent", songs packed with uncompromising dark heaviness and intensity yet flecked with shards of brilliant sunshine in the form of blistering blues flavoured guitar soloing and heady lysergic experimentation.


Heavy is a word that often gets overused in the dictionary of the underground rock community, used to describe music ranging from blues rock to death metal. The Oxford Dictionary however defines "heavy" as something "of great density, thick and substantial" and if you take this definition as your starting point for musical reference then the grooves Saturnist bring to the table with "The Horns, Teeth & The Hooves" are damn near humungous!
Check it out ....


© 2018 Frazer Jones

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