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Saturnalia Temple: Aion of drakon
12/09/11 || gk
Sweden’s Saturnalia Temple first came to my attention in 2007 with their demo “UR” which was some shameless Electric Wizard worship. Still, the stoner doom genre isn’t exactly known for its originality and the band slowly but surely started to evolve over the course of 4 years, an EP and a 4 way split. “Aion Of Drakon” is the bands debut full length and is one of the finer entrants in the over populated stoner doom genre this year.
Album opener “God is Two” is basically 2 minutes of layered noise and random drum, guitar and vocal effects and the first proper song, “Black Magic Metal” has a slow burning doom riff at its heart that owes a fair bit to Electric Wizard but its the little touches like the bass acting as counterpoint to the riff and the vocals which are reverb laden to the max and act like an additional layer of sound floating on top of the music that lifts the song up from being just another Electric Wizard rip off. Having said that, it’s with the title song that the album really starts to impress. “Aion of Drakon” starts like something Chrome or Farflung would do. A slow jagged guitar riff that screams of kraut rock and psychedelia before moving on to an ominous dirge. The bands occult influences come to the fore on this song. “Ancient Sorceries” is a monolith of doom channeling the spirit of Black Sabbath through some grim nods to Celtic Frost and always maintaining a groove. “Sitra Ahra Ruled Solitary before Creation” sounds like Winter and Celtic Frost battling it out with layers of effects giving the song an ominous atmosphere while “The Fall” is a superb end to the album with a memorable and groovy riff that reminds me of Sleep and a twin lead section at the end that is superbly self indulgent and feels like it was recorded at the height of the prog-rock explosion in the 60s.
Make no mistake, this band and album is not for everybody. Casual listeners will probably not get past the first song and the music is self indulgent and owes a fair bit to Electric Wizard, Sleep, Farflung, progressive and kraut rock while always maintaining a strong sense of identity through their decidedly occult stance. The production job on “Aion of Drakon” is terrific as well. Each instrument is given enough room to breathe and the layers of music are wonderfully arranged and mixed.
This is a pretty great full length debut from Saturnalia Temple. In a genre that’s increasingly over populated with mediocrity and a slavish trend to follow the masters it’s refreshing to come across an album that is more than just the sum of its influences. “Aion of Drakon” is self indulgent music for stoners but it’s also very very good.
- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Ajna Offensive
- Website: Saturnalia Temple MySpace
- Band
- Tommie: vocals/ guitars
- Peter: bass
- Tracklist
- 01. God Is Two
- 02. Black Magic Metal
- 03. Aion of Drakon
- 04. Ancient Sorceries
- 05. Sitra Ahra Ruled Solitary Before Creation
- 06. The Fall
