Album Review: Moon Coven - Sun King
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
From the opening fuzz/psych/doom/stoner grooves emanating from my speakers with the first track 'Wicked Words in Gold They Wrote' I instantly know that this record from Malmo’s Moon Coven, is going to be something special, and it doesn’t let me down each time I play it, with so many new things to discover. The grooves are built around their trademark sound, with a heavy slant of bluesy rock and sets the bar very high for the rest of the album.
Two years after unleashing their third album, but first release on Ripple Music, the Swedish quartet are back with a bang, with 9 new songs on their fourth album 'Sun King'. As the band commented “Sun King was a fresh start for us” and they “wanted to try other styles, to keep producing interesting music” whilst still maintaining their passion for fuzz and continuing to fuse together the genre staples such as Black Sabbath and Acid King, with the progressive magic of Pink Floyd.
'Seeing Stone' continues the electric pace, and again demonstrates what fine musicians the band are. The vocal on this one from David Regn Leban, reminds me a bit of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, feeling a bit like a devil worshipper, but the upbeat riffs are full of vibrancy and energy that keep the song moving, the only downside to this one is that it’s over too quickly!
Then we have the title track 'Sun King', which kicks the pace up a few notches with a scintillating opening salvo and it has a more atmospheric, psychedelic vibe running throughout the song before the power takes over halfway through, with some added grooviness as a later addition. It’s a brilliant song from start to finish, and probably my favourite one, which is hard to pick, as they are all superb.
'Behold the Serpent' slows everything down to offer more of the doom/stoner metal sound, with Fredrik Dahlqvist pounding out a hypnotic sound from his drums, and bass player Pontus Ekberg, adding a deep doomy groove that propels the song, giving it a dark and powerful feel, and this is followed by 'Below The Black Grow' with a delicious intro, that leads into another gloomy psych track, with added fuzz just to keep that feel well and truly alive, before the riffs from Leban and Axel Ganhammer, let the song just take flight and drift off to heady heights.
The standard is kept immensely high with the over the next 4 tracks, and it would be easy for me to sit here and type more superlatives, but when people listen to songs like 'The Yawning Wild', which has a really filthy bass line, or the sublime instrumental of 'Death Shine Light on Life' or the stunning 'The Lost Color', they will no doubt agree that this is a diverse album, fueled by fuzz and myth-laden doom/stoner/psych grooves, and one that will no doubt be up there with the outstanding releases of the year.
