High Priests Of Saturn: Son Of Earth And Sky

Norway’s doom/psych pilgrims find their home amongst the stars

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This trio’s 2013 debut brought hulking doom riffs, delivered with the genre’s signature tone and bathed with 70s-revering Hammond organ.

It’s a reverence that’s been nurtured, the band recruiting a fourth member on keyboard and setting sail on a psychedelic journey. Son Of Earth And Sky makes for a spellbinding listen, the languid, bluesy doom of Aeolian Dunes conjuring images of desolate, alien expanses under purple skies. Chords turn to fuzz at their edges, bumping gently into each other while vocalist Merethe Heggeset dreams out loud, her voice detached, drifting on solar winds.

The entire affair has an effortlessly cool aura, be it the smouldering embers of Ages Move The Earth, or when the riffs of old return briefly on The Warming Moon, melting before you, only to reappear and run riot with a hard rock freak-out.

Closer_ The Flood Of Waters_ drifts out into the great unknown; a fitting close to a space ritual that transcends the band’s origins.