(written by Islander)
What madness is this?!?
No doubt with grinning faces, Summoning Saturn Voids describe their lineup as an “intergalactic covenant” that features “clones and doppelgangers stolen from earthly bands like Aborym, Darkend, Drakkar, The Headless Ghost, and Daemoniac (plus a quite well renowned gentleman from Norway).”
Possibly still with grinning faces, but possibly not, they describe their musical mission this way:
“The Summoning Saturn Voids project was born from a desire to create a musical time machine.
“Bringing a black metal singer into the future, immersed in sidereal and cosmic sounds and then catapulting him into the 70’s, jamming with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler…. The potion thus evoked is at the same time spirited and punishing, grim and melancholic, reeking of 70’s era Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and… well, you will surely find out.”
We can deduce from the other band names mentioned above that this collective is Italian in origin, except for the un-named Norwegian, and that they are experienced… though possibly not experienced in the experimental time-travel music they’ve brewed for their self-titled debut album, which will be released on December 6th by Argonauta Records.
Deducing what that music will sound like based on the quoted description is a more difficult challenge. They say they wished to “pay tribute to a masterpiece like Vol. 4 and at the same time make everything fresher and more current, without copying other bands and being a copy of Electric Wizard,” and thus to make themselves “true aliens in an increasingly framed musical world.”
But what does this mean? Today we will find out together, because we’re presenting a full stream of the album’s 8 songs — the last of which seems to imagine a stoned Bowie from one of his most vital eras (“Siggy Starsmoke And The Bongsters From Mars“).
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. It’s better to begin at the beginning, with the opener “Cosmic Sabbath” — and there we hear the band’s announced strategy in action, through a combine of eerie, blood-pumping, and head-spinning sensations: shivering sounds of cosmic mystery, abrasively raking riffs, gut-punching and rumbling-boulder drumwork, rabidly malicious screams, and a weirdly quivering solo.
It creates visions of a hulking and hungry space-beast whose appearance becomes even more alien and menacing when the pacing slows (though there, the drum-fills still rumble the listener’s head).
After that eye-popping start, the album moves into a song the band released through a video: “Nihil Re-Genesis“. In this song, Summoning Saturn Voids don’t leave the punchy grooves behind but they do slow the tempo and shift the mood, crafting music that’s both sinister and steeped in gloom, but shrouded in shimmering synths that remind us we’re still voyaging through space and time.
The vocals shift too, bringing malignant snarls, horrid roars, and strangled shrieks into play, and the dreamlike but also soulful guitar solo conjures memories of Pink Floyd. Before it’s done, the song does become a rocking neck-bender, but it remains scary through and through.
From just those two songs, no one would accuse Summoning Saturn Voids of being a mimic of Sabbath or Electric Wizard. The vocals alone would lacerate any such assertion, and beyond that, the music is just too… alien… and demonic… and stylistically multi-faceted… to bolster such a claim.
Those two songs also suggest that the band had no intention of making all the album tracks sound alike, and the next six confirm that guess.
“Blackshift Alien God” pumps up the energy and spikes it with darting electronic pulses, monstrous gang yells, and wailing and woozy guitar-leads, but it also drags the listener through crawling misery and serves up a frantic and psychedelic solo.
On the other hand, “Technical Heresy” revives the heavy and hulking space beast, staggering and slavering, backed by a bass-and-drum combo that slugs hard enough to rupture spleens, fronted by serrated-edge vocal ferocity, laced with swirls of fretwork dementia and bursts of bounding energy, and featuring another captivating solo that’s bluesy and trippy.
“Mare Tranquillitatis” provides a fascinating instrumental interlude, both seductive and vibrant, and still out of this world, after which “Star Wreck” (these folks do like their linguistic twists!) rocks out and gallops, but with some viciously gnashing riffage and spooky theremin-like shimmering in the mix, and “Funerastrology” (more fun with words!) doubles-down on the sinister spookiness and the bad-acid-trip atmosphere, and provides one more remarkable solo.
And at last we come to the Bowie tribute, “Siggy Starsmoke And The Bongsters From Mars,” though of course it’s a thoroughly mutated homage to Ziggy and the Spiders From Mars, one that’s indeed drenched in bong water but also, through the vocals, is coming for your jugular with fangs bared and mind lost.
In a nutshell, Summoning Saturn Voids have managed to do exactly what they foretold they would do, as strange as it might have been to imagine that. And the result is a fantastic album of fiendishly addictive and fiendishly head-swirling music, truly a time-traveling trip that masterfully pays homage to lots of influences and provides listeners a ton of evil and alien fun. Enjoy!
LINE UP:
Æ – Vocals
AL(B)3 – Bass
RHA –Guitars
H7-25 – Drums
Fabban – Synth
The album was produced by Fabban from the distinctive Aborym, and here he also functioned as keyboardist and noisemaker. The cover art was created by the band’s vocalist.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.argonautarecords.com/shop/cd/754-summoning-saturn-voids-summoning-saturn-voids-cd.html
SUMMONING SATURN VOIDS:
https://www.facebook.com/summoningsaturnvoids