DOMKRAFT: Sonic Moon (STONER): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

'Slowburner', the first single release from "Sonic Moons", lasts five minutes and twenty-one seconds. Five minutes and twenty-one seconds of bliss and pleasure. Massive, hypnotic riffs that cling to the memory and rough vocals irrigate this track that should easily win the award for best track of the year, the kind of track you can't help but listen to over and over again.

The rest of Domkraft's menu may not (quite) reproduce the same orgiastic intensity, but this fourth Domkraft album is nonetheless a real lesson in gruff stoner that will undoubtedly go down as a landmark in the genre and in the band's career. Domkraft had already furiously cleaned out our ears with three albums ('The End Of Electricity' in 2016, 'Flood' in 2018 and 'Seeds' in 2021), which set the Swedish power trio's scowling psychedelia in molten rock, a surprisingly effective blend of soaring, even cosmic sounds and rocky harshness, a cross between Hawkwind and MC5.

But "Sonic Moons" clearly takes the Scandinavians' music to a higher level, striking just the right balance between the various traits displayed by their progenitors. Domkraft really has his own way of casting the bewitching beauty of psychedelic rock in an extremely heavy style. The more expansive compositions of course lend themselves to this hybridisation, as 'Whispers' (over nine minutes) and 'Stellar Winds' (a little shorter) demonstrate. Placed at the beginning of the track, this jubilant doublet rumbles with a telluric tension capable of cracking a hydroelectric dam, yet enveloped in a thick, hypnotic mist. The powerful riffs mired in a volcanic bedrock and the raspy timbre of bassist Martin Wegeland are countered by the dramatic delicacy of stratospheric guitar lines.

At the other end of the spectrum, 'The Big Chill' is something of a lunar epic, carved out of the stony material so dear to the Swedes. In the middle are four more squat tracks, which you might think would be more concerned with aggressive efficiency. In truth, this nervous format in no way exempts them from the bewitching sap that irrigates them, even if a track like 'Magnetism' sends the Geiger counter into a frenzy as the vocals become even more abrupt and muddy against a back of effect-laden guitars. In the steep wake of the aforementioned 'Slowburner', 'Downpour' is remarkable, a mix of snarls and nebulous ambience that is also a launchpad to the stars.

With 'Sonic Moons', guttural and tough but hypnotically powerful, Domkraft sets the bar very high, delivering one of the most orgasmic opus of the year. - Official website

DOMKRAFT

SONIC MOON

AUTRE LABEL

STONER