Artist: Saint Omen
Title: Mysteries Of Rebirth
Type: Album
Label: Self Released
I mentioned in my Hiraeth review that it was an album I had to take my time with but kept going back to before I knew I had to review it. Not only is that a good thing, but it is also one of the advantages of this being my own blog. I don’t have deadlines, I can take time with one album or crack out one in a couple of days its so immediate. Both are valid as music, and its intent, varies. Saint Omen is another project that initially I had problems with getting into it but kept going back to. Because. Because I knew there was something in here I liked but… well, to put it one way; I listening to it wrong. I was hearing something and instead of listening to where it went, I was following what I thought it should be. And Saint Omen are not that kind of project at all.
‘Invocation Of Rebirth’ is a slow, malevolent intro. A spoken word, a slow wind up of dums, some eerie melody snaking across it…then the fuzz. The stoner/psyche vibe guitar of Hell Money’ crawls out from under the stairs, an off kilter melody and some weird, distorted vocals slide from sixties/seventies hellhole. You wonder when the riff is going to crank up, the sound explode…. but it doesn’t. This is not a beating, this is dripped poison with the ghost of Roky Erickson watching on. It drones, it steps skeletal like through dust and filth sneering and finally stares straight into your soul ‘it’s why you’re dead inside…. hell money…”
This is where you realise, in that moment, that this isn’t some psyche workout. Not even as ‘Devil Eyes’ finds a dirty groove. The tone of that riff is fuzzed to the max but the song is like the worn down knees on old jeans… everything is thread bare. Anyone old enough to remember Monster Magnet’s filthy debut ‘Spine Of God? Well its a Satanic drug thing, you wouldn’t understand… This has just that taint of being wrong. In the best way possible. Those who battle sin surely never win.
‘Bone Shakin’ Mama’ might have you drooling at the thought of a truckload of mama’s muffins… but once more, this is just twisted. Nasty. Drug and cult addled debauchery, the winding guitar following the sneering, pitch black and crossroads obtained blues drenched voice. Midway between singing and spoken, they carry the vicious edge of this track and the music is the stage show.
‘Those Who Harm’ has a sample (which you will know) that fades on the back of an organ sound. Slow, quiet but deeply sinister the instrumental glides a weird line between Hammer and Manson. It has that downturn end of the flower of the sixties into the savage withdrawl of the seventies. It is compelling, occult without words and with disorientating melodies swapped between organ and guitar. It is mesmeric.
‘Smokeless Fire’ leads us ‘walking down to the tide, see the evil secrets that he hides. It is a sparse song but like a dirty chipped knife blade it still cuts. Whether its doomed guitar riff and break are the voices in your head or the fading sounds of the trip you just exited I don’t know but you just walk on with free will between us unresolved in fear…. ‘Satan Man’ picks you up, the church organ sound turned upside down. Every vow you swore would stand turns to dust inside my hand. It’s mad, devil preaching shit. Bad whiskey and worse drugs and a countryside stuck half a century back. The voice feels like a whisper, the pace slow and horribly seductive. You hate yourself for wanting to give in. For giving in.
The title track is another superb instrumental; delicate acoustic guitar, throbbing bass and pitter-patter as though descending into some dust and cobweb basement only to find the strangest of lights…
‘Undead’ has another deeply atmospheric riff. That stalking sound of the bass follows you around the room. A tale of vampires, crushed and twisted through that Erickson style insanity and spat onto the floor.
‘Levitation Communion’ is the sound, the sign, to leave the church and head out into whatever world you think is there.
Saint Owen have cracked open the rotten doorway to a world of Satanic cult devotion, drugs and booze and the hazy hangover of the sixties and seventies uncovered in the twenty first century. It’s like finding maggots writhing under your steak. It is almost quiet in volume but deafening in effect. It sneers, it bites, it twists and at times it towers above you like the preacher from Hell. Blues, stoner, doom and sheer nastiness skinned alive and laid out in a sparse sound that reeks of old houses and a mattress on the floor.
It’s fantastic. Please; approach with care but try this. Just a taste? What harm could it possibly do..?
Gizmo
Walking The Liminal Space 