As you can see, today we have a song premiere today. It’s from the debut album Sacrilegious by the band Suton from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will be co-released by Satanath Records and InsArt Records on April 18th. But today’s song is the second one revealed so far from the album. We should start with the first one.
That one, “Celestial Consciousness. Starlight Divine.“, makes a striking impact, not soon forgotten, in part because it’s such an elaborate interweaving of stylistic strands. It creates tumult through electrifying drum revolutions, earth-heaving bass lines, savagely roiling riffs, and monstrous vocals. It also drapes the mind with a cold, swirling fog of supernatural creepiness in which a tormented voice wails its song.
The guitars reverberate in torment too, but also join with the bass to slug like a two-fisted bare-knuckled fighter. Gloom descends at the same time as the singing elevates and the guitars ring like brittle chimes. World-weary chants ensue amidst vividly undulating bass tones and skull-rattling drumwork. Scalding howls take over, and the riffing seems like the sound of a giant serpent moving beneath the earth. The music becomes a kind of moaning menace and staggers and crashes, though the permutations of that bass continue to rivet attention.
In short, the first single is a constantly mutating but completely captivating experience, rich in genre ingredients that are all well-integrated. See for yourselves:
That song is all the more impressive because it’s the work of just two people — Hylinn (who founded the band in 2014) and Insanus. Equally impressive, Sacrilegious is just the second release of Suton, preceded only by a split seven years ago (named Balkanian Narko Doom) with the Slovenian band Chains, and there Hylinn had a different collaborator than Insanus.
On this first album they’ve clearly hit upon a gripping songwriting formulation, yielding music that’s both abstract and visceral, sinister and haunting, seductive and fierce. It feels hallucinatory and horrifying, but also muscular. The tonal qualities of the guitars make them seem like the audio equivalent of some spectral shape-shifter, but the adventures of the rhythm section are every bit as attention-grabbing.
Well, we ought to get to today’s song premiere. This one is “Beyond Me. Forever Me.” Even longer than the first single, it provides even more room for Suton to maneuver. It wastes no time drawing the listener in, thanks again to the prominence of the killer bass-work and the spine-cracking impact of the drums, and from there the music and the vocals follow a continually branching path.
You’ll encounter jolting chugs and gut-punch grooves, but also slithering riffage and ethereal echoing elevations. The music sounds momentous and splendid as well as languid and inviting. Dancing keyboard-pings bring in an almost New Wave musical accent. The guitars claw at your guts and groan in agony, but others spiral and swirl with a brilliant gleam. Harmonious singing trades places with bestial growls. The drums even erupt in a riotous blast-fest during a searing guitar-blast-front, but also sound like bombs going off near the end.
In short, it’s another head-spinning trip through a very strange and perilous land. Again, the stylistic ingredients are numerous and the twists and turns manifold, but from beginning to end, everything seems cloaked in an atmosphere of devilish danger.
When we spill so many words about just two songs, it’s not because it’s necessary. It probably would have been better with songs like these to say nothing at all, to make the surprises even more dazzling when you hear them. So many words come out because the music has made such an unusually stirring impact on the writer, and we hope it will have that effect on you too — the need to talk it up with others!
Metal-Archives will need to change their “Drone/Doom Metal” description for the band. But trying to figure out what will take its place is a head-scratcher.
The album ends with a cover of a song called “Old Man Willow” by the band Elephant’s Memory from the late ’60s and early ’70s. That band was known primarily for backing John Lennon and Yoko Ono from late 1971 to 1973, when they were known as the Plastic Ono Elephant’s Memory Band. As if you needed any other signs that Suton don’t follow any straight and narrow paths.
As mentioned, Sacrilegious will be co-released by Satanath Records (Georgia) with InsArt Records (UK), on CD and digitally. It’s up for pre-order now.
PRE-ORDER:
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat357-suton-sacrilegious-2023
https://insartrecords.bandcamp.com/album/sacrilegious