Transubstans 2013
Acid-fried heavy rock from Sweden hanging from the edge of time.
This band do mean it when they zoom in on the blues factor of the SABBATH canon: it’s a great gimmick to transport the listener back in time, beyond their 2009’s debut “Goons And Masters” to the early ’70s when the riff was king. There’s a gray sway to the opener “Silver Tongue” that hints at the two strains the quartet realize on their second album, the catchy melodicism of tapping in the Delta tradition as it is on the epic “Bjälken I Ditt Oga” where Isak’s voice bares all its possibilities, and modern sort of cold shoegazing which rears its head every now and again.
If there’s a balance in such a battle of middle-class anger and a proletarian hunger, it comes with the handclaps-propelled march of “Strike Gold” boasting a nice slider shift from Böris, the group’s brightest asset, and with the frenetic charge of “What A Trip” elevated by a tightly locked rhythm section. The instrumentalists deliver a tasty stoner overload on “You Are The Wall” with its “stone I can never break down” fatalism and, perhaps, it summarizes the band’s stance. Static when they should be on a roll, the harmonies of the piano-pulsing ballad “Entering The Night” reveal the ensemble’s gentle nerve which, hit in the right way, may give this record’s follow-up rather impressive shape.
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