Time Signature
Crawling king snake...
Genre: psychedelic doom metal
You know, most so-called stoner doom does not really seem very doomy to me at all, but High Priest of Saturn's eponymous album is both totally stoner and totally doom-laden.
Building on simple groovy Sabbath-inspired riffs and heavy drum beats, the album's four songs are pretty minimalistic, but also very entrancing. One reason is the emphasis on repetition, and the use of hammond organs in the background, coupled with a reverb-heavy production does not exactly make the album come across any less psychedelic. Moreover, Merethe Heggset's chanting vocals are extremely introverted, and their not very prominent position in the mix (plus the use of reverb), serving as yet another contributor of psychedelia.
While I think pretty much ass the riffs are awesomely groovy, the deliberate monotony of the entire album does test my patience a bit (and, mind you, I am quite the doom metal fan), but it is just a matter of giving the album a couple of more spins. But there is no denying that High Priest of Saturn are masters of the groove.
Fans of darkly psychedelic music with more than a heavy dose of gloom and doom are likely to enjoy the debut album from High Priest of Saturn.