Evolution and change is pretty much inevitable in both life and music for its continuing existence. Of course, there are a couple of exceptions to this rule, both sharks and AC/DC having successfully found their evolutionary niches millions of years ago having no need to alter course. Those rarities aside, one such development can be seen in this release from Godless Suns who are unleashing their eponymous first album upon the world. With a core of Sarah and Peter Humphries on bass/vocals and guitar respectively, they have certainly changed their style from the high energy groove metal of Zocalo that veterans of London’s metal scene may well remember.
Rather than individual songs that stand alone, although trust me, they sound good individually, ‘Godless Suns’ is a narrative album, each track running into the next to create an overarching story, one steeped in the realm of magic and fantasy. ‘One Spark of Lilith’ opens the story with looping desert beats underpinning a spoken intro that develops into heavier doom laden riffs as the journey commences, Sarah’s voice narrating a tale of mankind from a time of long lost mythology, fading out into the stoner sensibilities of ‘Death of the Wise’, a number that seems to come creeping though a THC fog that creates its own sweet soundscape, the distortion laden solo guaranteed to have those who like their jeans flared nodding along in appreciation.
‘Fury’ follows, albeit this is not a furious attack of blast beats and buzz saw guitars, rather more a reference to the mythological creature of vengeance, gentle, delicately delivered vocals being underpinned with a subtle creeping menace that is enhanced by a stark musical delivery, whole tracts of the song being nothing more than staccato cymbal beats punctuated by low plaintive chords. By contrast ‘Purgation’ is composed of a dense wall of sound, distorted riffs flooding forward with the slow inexorability of a tar tsunami, slowly washing from the speakers in an instrumental wave of doom. This darkness continues in a less bludgeoning fashion with ‘Bones’, steeped as it is in dirty Blues, the musical form that gave rise to rock and then metal, and whose themes of despair and suffering continue to influence so much of the music that metal fans love; remember over half a century before Black Metal was screaming and grunting unintelligibly about Satan, Robert Johnson had met the Devil at the crossroads and had him retune his guitar. The whole is rounded off by ‘Godless’, again a Bluesy sound prevailing, but with more modern stoner sensibilities and a heavier rhythm section than their musical ancestors in the deep South of America could have imagined, its eight plus minute length acting as a coda to the story told by the album, and like an after credit scene in a movie, the closing speech offering teasers of sequels to come.
Whilst ‘Godless Suns’ is the first album by the band, they have been working together for some years towards this release, initially playing as ‘Season of the Witch’, and each member of the band comes with a wealth of musical experience, something that is immediately apparent in the music. Played with skill, it is composed in such a way as to be played live as it sounds on the album, relying on the abilities of the players rather than that of an engineer to over polish the sound. If you can get to one of their forthcoming shows, treat yourself and get there. If you can’t, well, buying the album is definitely something to treat yourself to.
(8.5/10 Spenny)
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