Sahg is a band that has over the years evolved with each record, each release being matched by an evolution in the line up of the band, and with ‘Memento Mori’, their fifth album, and follow up to 2013’s ‘Delusions of Grandeur’, this development has continued.
Album opener ‘Black Unicorn’ opens with a style that could have come from the late 60’s exploratory days of Pink Floyd, Sahg apparently setting their own controls for the heart of the sun, the heaviness belonging to an age before Metal, instead being a darkly psychedelic journey from the era where the hippy dream of love and peace turned dark as psychic explorations of the consciousness with hallucinogens gave way to dark lows that crushed the spirits. The pace is upped for ‘Devilspeed’, and whilst undoubtedly a track that could have heads banging, the sound is more of an angry progressive gallop than the straightforward riff-fest that narrow minded metal warriors might desire, and for that it is all the better; whilst members of the band have roots in the more extreme areas of Norway’s scene, listening to the track it is easy to believe in between playing devilishly screamed tales of burning churches, the occasional Yes album sneaked onto their collective turntables to counterpoint the kvlt.
The funereal theme of the album, ‘Memento Mori’ translating from the Latin as “remember you will die” (O-level grade B, 1986, if you’re interested), continues with ‘Take It To The Grave’, a track that is almost a throwback to Sahg’s earlier doom sound, a sensibility that continues into ‘Silence The Machines’, albeit the latter track ups the Prog sound, a song appropriate hint of the industrial just lapping at the edges of the sound. ‘Sanctimony’ follows hard and heavy with the most traditional sounding track on the album, the hook of massive guitar lines backed by a pounding rhythm section redolent with pomp and bombast matching Candlemass at their most theatrical; it truly is the stand out track on the first listen to the album with the immediate impact it makes. However, with repeated listens to the album, with time to take in the complexities of other tracks, the impact of ‘Sanctimony’ is not lessened, rather the other tracks grow and develop in the mind. For example, ‘(Praise) The Electric Sun’, a number that relies heavily on the acoustic guitar at first seems some trippy-hippy idyll, but with more plays the dark tones come through with a growing appreciation of the lyrics that are by turn gentle and then nihilistic, a progression matched by the growing menace of the instrumentation. Rounding off the album is ‘Blood Of Oceans’ and the pagan heritage of the band is explored with shared vocals telling a tale of seaborne myths, the track ending with Norse chants over a pounding drum beat, harking towards the extreme roots of some of the band members without descending into the over the top harsh theatricality some black metal bands employ.
‘Momento Mori’ is a complex album, and one that requires many plays to start to get a full appreciation of. Yes, you could just dip quickly into the album, and let the power of the likes of ‘Sanctimony’ get your head banging and your fist pumping the air, but I genuinely recommend taking your time to appreciate the many themes that Sahg have threaded through each of the skilfully crafted tracks that make up the album. I’ve no doubt that I’ll continue to revisit ‘Momento Mori’, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I look back and wonder why I didn’t score it even more highly as time progresses.
(8/10 Spenny)
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