JESS AND THE ANCIENT ONES — Astral Sabbat (review)

JESS AND THE ANCIENT ONES — Astral Sabbat album cover EP · 2013 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Time Signature
Long and lonesome road...

Genre: psychedelic hard rock

Jess and the Ancient Ones unleashed their psych/prog hard rock debut album upon the world last year and also appeared on a split, and now they are back with an EP.

Drawing on psychedelic 70s rock as its main inspiration, "Astral Sabbat" is more on the psychedelic rock side than the metallic side, and definitely has less of a metallic edge than the debut album. Still, it features enough hard rock elements that it should appeal to a metal crowd.

'Long and Lonesome Road' in particular features some heavy Southern grooves and several references to proto-metal. Likewise, the otherwise mellow "More Than Living", once it really kicks in, does feature some quite heavy passages and a couple of rocking riffs as well - especially towards the end. The guitar-and-organ combo particularly oozes of 70s hard rock / proto-metal. The title track sounds more like a psyched up darker type of surf rock, with a twangy guitar to boot (the chorus, however, is as occult as it gets).

A dynamic and definitely far from boring release, "Atral Sabbat" is a fine specimen of psychedelic hard rock by a band who have really understood how to take the best of the darker genres of 70s rock and bring it into the 21st century.
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