I will confess that I was a little confused when asked by my editor to review this; hadn’t I just reviewed Tombstones a couple of weeks ago? Nope, this is Tombstoned, a different, albeit confusingly similarly named band. Hey, I guess there are only so many band names in the world, and a quick trip to the realms of urban slang tells me that to be “Tombstoned” is to be so stoned as to be unable to move. Hmm, could this Helsinki band be implying a degree of THC influence in their music?
‘Through Days’ opens in a suitably fuzzy haze of 70’s inspired riffage and laid back vocals, a chugging beat carrying the band through the seven minutes of the opener, one of the shorter tracks on the album, sounding throughout suitably stripped back as if recorded in a garage with valve laden amps rather then polished through a myriad of computer programs, always a plus point in my book. So far, so retro, so good, and there can be little doubt the band have been partaking of a hearty dose of Blue Cheer as an influence. ‘Daze of Disintegration’ follows, but the distorted sustain of the guitars and bass, interweaving with the tortured vocals starts to move the sound away into the realms of eighties Gothic sensibility, the singer/guitarist Jussi sounding like he is just moments away from an existential breakdown, and having no prior knowledge of the band, I just started to imagine them clad in baggy black spider web jumpers with massive back combed hair sprouting from the top. I know this is in many ways unfair, and most likely a product of my age, but I genuinely felt the music moving out of the realm of stoner and into the world of melancholy.
‘Rat Race’ follows with a more energetic opening, drums and cymbals receiving a hearty battery, the riffs having a sludgier tone, but again it is with the vocals, sometimes sounding so laid back they almost have the “world bores me” delivery of Robert Smith that again made me feel again this is an album for the more tragically inclined. It is with album closer ‘Last Waltz’, an eleven and a half minute epic, that the band finally shone. The opening minutes, stripped back and with a sound that could easily support the mournful croons of Johnny Cash built up into a fuzzy wall of amplifier howls, desert rock hints of Kyuss and QOTSA building up the bleak soundscape of the track, finishing as it does with a wall of feedback.
Svart are a small, but canny label, able to sign and promote bands that follow, and indeed, inform the Zeitgeist; there is a lot to like about the musicianship of this album, and it may well be the Gothic melancholia of the vocals has an audience, and as such Svart are going to draw in with this album a wider spectrum of fans from old school stoners, through Bauhaus lovers, and into the realms of the hipster. For me, there are more then enough displays of skill in the instruments to keep me interested, and it is in the live forum that I will truly judge the band.
(7/10 Spenny)
Leave a Reply