Church of Misery, Boris, Eternal Elysium, Bahboon, Hebi Katana, the list of Japanese doom and stoner orientated bands gracing Desert Psychlist's music collection is growing and today we get to add another to that list in the shape of Tokyo's Sun Moon Holy Cult an outfit who number among their influences, along with the given Black Sabbath, Witchfinder General, Acid King and Belzebong. The band are no copyists however, they use their influences to forge their own sound, a sound that is rooted in stoner doom but not restricted by it, the band using the slow low and heavy dynamics of the genre as a platform from which to launch off into cosmic, acid drenched jams helped along the way by unique and distinctive vocals, all of which you will discover for yourselves via their self-titled debut "Sun Moon Holy Cult"
Things start of impressively heavy with "I Cut Your Throat" its opening salvo of crunching riffage, cellar level bass and thundering drums suggesting a more proto-dynamic until that is the vocals come in and things drop down into a more sedate pace with the vocalist telling us in mournful accented tones that she would like to "make a wish and cut your throat". The second half of the song sees the band flexing their muscles on a deliciously scuzzed out proto-doom jam that sees keyboards and guitars vying for dominance over a backdrop of pummelling percussion and growling bass. "Savoordoom" takes the doomic acidity of the previous songs second half and raises it up a notch or three this time accompanied by a monotonic mantra like vocal that we can only assume is sang in the bands native tongue, the band taking things to an even loftier level of acidic doomic dankness after those vocals subside. Third song "Mystic River" has a more traditional rock feel to it, still residing very much in the doom canon but with more melodic vocals and a tight four to the floor feel, a feel enhanced by some nice guitar hooks and bluesy solos. Sun Moon Holy Cult bring things to a close with "Out of the Dark" a song that sees the band putting all their dooms in one basket, toying with aspects of proto, stoner and traditional doom while still retaining that acid/scuzz element that has informed all the albums previous songs up until this point and even getting a little funky in places.
Unique and untamed vocals fronting unique and untamed doom is the best way to describe what you will hear when spinning Sun Moon Holy Cult's self-titled debut, it is not a perfect album by any means but perfection is often a breeding ground for blandness and sterility and you won't find either on this album.
Check it out ....
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