When Earth is no longer big enough to contain your seismic
riffs, the only place left is the infinitely expanding dimensions of space, and
that is exactly where Swedish heavy stoner/psych trio Vokonis firmly thrust
themselves with their debut record Olde One Ascending, with riffs capable of
bringing down planets, drumming the depths of a black hole, and vocals with the
force of star imploding, the band have gone all in and left nothing to waste.
Anyway, that’s enough of the space analogies, let’s get to the music.
The record opens with the thunderous ‘Olde One’; eight
minutes of pure heavy stoner rock, charging ever forward after it falsely
appears to head into a space rock direction. There are hints of the bands
psychedelic roots and the underlying sound of doom, but the gigantic rolling
riffs bring about hefty head banging. The vocals of Simon Ohlsson are
passionately shouted with more of a ritual echo rather than anger, a little
reminiscent of early Black Pyramid. The loud drone of the vocals remain at a
constant attention grabbing level throughout the record, as ‘The Serpent’s
Alive’ follows a similar route but leaning towards more psychedelia routes as
the killer guitar solo takes your tripped out subconscious by the balls and
reminds it who’s boss.
The guitar work and drumming are at an excellent
standard, wielded by talented musicians who wear their influences on their
sleeves (mainly Sleep) as the power of ‘Acid Pilgrim’ melts the speakers, the
sheer stoner audacity of ‘Shroomblade’ is orgasmic to listen to with riffs to
destroy the heaviest of hearts, and closer ‘Hazmat The Ashen Rider’ releases a
cacophony of riffs directly into your face without an ounce of apology. The six
songs on offer here fly by in an instant, but the whole record leaves you with
your fists clenched, and a feeling that what you’ve just listened to was just
about as heavy as it gets (and just in case you didn’t realise the name of this
blog, that’s how we like things around here!). Olde One Ascending is an
excellent heavy record and if your speakers can take it, get a hold of a copy
now!
and Zach Hill.
