Album Review: Sarajah – Sarajah
Reviewed by Paul Elphick
Doom metal has moved on from the original 90s scene with bands like Cathedral, Trouble, Candlemass and St Vitus carrying the torch for those Black Sabbath riffs. Nowadays a lot of bands are branching out bringing in other influences. Bands like 40 Watt Sun and The River bringing folk influences and other bands such as Thronehammer bringing death/doom riffs along with Celtic frost worship.
Sarajah are a throw back to those early 90s days.
Formed in Finland to play metal in the vein of Black Sabbath, Trouble and St Vitus. The songs lyrical content investigates themes such as nature and Nordic mythology. This is their debut album and certainly all the above influences are heard loud and clear.
The vocals are very much in the Trouble Eric Wager range and feel. The first song to blast out the speakers is 'Sarajah'. This could almost be an outage from a trouble album, with some fantastic grooving riffs flowing into the breakdown.
This record is a real riff fest. A lot you will think you've heard before but the band have crafted a fantastic doom metal record. They seem to have taken their time over the overall production and song writing, the guitar sound is magnificent. The way the songs flow is a credit to the order they have placed the songs in. It is a very well put together record.
'Lone Riders', 'Lungs of Smoke', 'Journey of William Barentsz' are all riff heavy, groove moving songs. 'Home of Arktos' breaks the mood of the record with a nice acoustic interlude that moves into a very heavy song. This could well be regarded as a classic tune on the doom scene. The rest of the record moves along nicely with some great old school St Vitus sounding songs, 'A Year With Us', 'I Am The Soil' and 'The Underworld'. All in all, a very strong debut laying out its influences on its sleeve. It's nothing new but the songs are strong enough to carry it through. If you love a bit of doom metal this is well worth your time and money. A great record!
