WOYGN ~ ASCENDANCE ...... review

The first thing Desert Psychlist does of a morning is check through the endless emails and messages that we are constantly sent from PR companies, record labels, bands and fellow groove seekers, we then save to a file what we find interesting and discard what we don't. Our next job is to then peruse the stoner, doom and other relevant genres of Bandcamp to see what else might be of interest and worthy of a possible review. It was while we were busying ourselves doing the latter that we came across an EP release entitled "Ascendance" from a Slovenian duo going by the name Woygn, Jan Laznik (guitar/vocals) and Alex Paradiž (bass/drums,/backing vocals). Drawn in by the bands unusual name and the EP's stunning artwork we pushed play and what we heard immediately pushed everything else earmarked for a review down a place and resulted in the words you will find below.

Woygn  kick off "Ascendance" with the face melting "Watery Grave" a song that combines thunderous percussion with fuzz heavy riffage, screaming guitar solos and impassioned clean sneery vocals to create a sound that is a raunchy blend of sludge and stoner/hard rock fleshed out with elements of psychedelic doom and pacey heavy metal. Now it is often the case that a band will open a release with what they perceive as an "ear grabber" a song so good you can forgive said band any fall off in intensity and impact that may follow, however "fall" and "off" are not words that exist in Woygn's vocabulary and so "Watery Grave" is followed up with three more ass-kicking ball-busting barn burners. "Ascendant Divine", with its Maiden-esque galloping groove and off the scale lead work, the proto-doomic "The Glutton", with its tastefully shredded solos', gritty vocal interplay and furious drumming, and "Lord of the Plagueborne", with its almost Viking metal like groove and bellowed vocal harmonies, are each as impactful and joyously intense as each other, there are no ambient let ups or lilting ballads allowing the listener time to catch a breath instead what you get is full on metallic furiosity from the EP's very first note to its last, a mind-blowing maelstrom of groove.

Check it out ..... 

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