Part of the job of the editor for this fine site that you are reading is to ensure that the right reviewer gets the right music so the band gets a fair review, and the listener knows where to spend their money in these days of fiscal uncertainty and bullet belt tightening. Sometimes, however, a risk is taken, and I was sent the forthcoming release from Sweden’s Saturnalia Temple with the caveat that for me it “might be too evil!” Fair enough, considering the link arrived in my inbox just before I headed off to a Rick Wakeman concert, but challenge accepted.
With so much music in the world, and only so much time to listen to it, I’ll admit that Saturnalia Temple are a band I’ve not knowingly encountered before, and knew nothing of their style, but with a label of “Doom” and hailing from that most metal of nations Sweden, I thought I’d have a fair idea of what was to come on ‘Paradigm Call’; indeed, the slow, echoing album opener ‘Drakon’, with dark monastic chanting promised a familiar and comfortable journey into the realms travelled so long and so well by the likes of Candlemass. This potential similarity is kicked into touch with follow up ‘Revel In Dissidence’, the guttural vocals being a world away from Messiah Marcolin and deep in the dank depths that the likes of Weedeater flourish. Dark lyrics are growled out in a style that is just this side of intelligible, and accompanied by a looping fuzz laden riff, thunderous bowel loosening bass, and a primitive bludgeon of drums. Nothing is pretty or fancy, subtlety and technical flourishes eschewed for a gut punch of metal. This same stomp continues unabated and unalloyed in title track ‘Paradigm Call’, a track that advances with all the inexorable slog of an advancing zombie horde, slowly fading out in an extended solo as if the band had forgotten that a song can actually end and did not need to travel forever in an extended jam.
By comparison, at barely over five minutes, ‘Among The Ruins’ is an almost indecently fast sprint, chugging forward with a waxing and waning time signature to have an audience alternately swaying and stomping, but never static. Track after track follows in the same vein: ‘Black Smoke’ imbues the Doom with THC laced strands of stoner metal; ‘Ascending The Pale’ drags itself along at a near funereal lumber; ‘Empty Chalice’ sounds like an early Venom 45 played at 33rpm; and closer ‘Kaivalya’, with its emphasis on a bass riff made me wonder if this is what Nick Oliveri would play like on Mogadon.
Now none of what I’ve said so far may sound particularly flattering, and I’ll admit that on first play through I came close to dismissing ‘Paradigm Call’ as not my thing and firing it back to my aforementioned editor in the hope that another scribe would take on the task. However, second listen, and I found myself nodding along to each track, and appreciating nuances that I had not at first noticed, the hypnotic style of the band drawing me deeper into the sonic landscape, and with each subsequent play I found new layers amongst the deeply interwoven fuzz and feedback. ‘Paradigm Call’ is almost the definition of a “grower”, and I can only imagine how good it would sound, and frankly with the wall of noise, feel, played live and loud with an appreciative audience and a mayhaps something more “relaxing” in my system than the mugs of tea I drink whilst reviewing. If, like me, you’re a bit cynical about some music that “might be too evil”, take the risk, and you could well be, like me, happy to be proven wrong.
(7.5/10 Spenny)
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