ALBUM REVIEW: Gods – SaaR

Gods is the third full length album from Paris-based post-metal collective SAAR, and following two solid LPs (2013’s The Last Day and 2016’s Sol), the band are taking on their most ambitious project to date: a concept album based on the epic poems of Homer. For a band that specialises in music that switches between atmospheric, ethereal ambiences and crushingly heavy post-metal, and drawing influences from the likes of CULT OF LUNA, BOSSK and ISIS, Homer’s Odyssey already feels like the right, epic fit. What makes this project all the more tantalising, is that this is an instrumental band taking on a wordy source. But rest assured, the results are spectacular.

Comprising eight songs (seven instrumental and album closer Truth which features guest vocals – more on that later), the album was written to be listened to in one sitting; experienced as a journey, much like that of Homer’s hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca. At 50 minutes, it’s looking like a lengthy journey, but Gods is an album so well crafted, and in perpetual movement, that it feels far shorter than its listed runtime.

Ulysses gets proceedings underway in the tried and tested way of feedback and chords, eventually giving way to an earworm riff that swells into a full-band assault. What’s noteworthy here is just how apparent their influences are, perfectly capturing the tone of the genre’s leading lights. A song of three parts, the final third is an ethereal, delicate phase that soothes the listener.

It’s hard to pick a stand-out highlight on an album as well-crafted and spectacularly performed such as this, but title track Gods is the kind of number you’d expect to hear during a video game boss fight. Building from a simple riff to a cataclysmically thunderous crescendo, it is a show-stopping journey through every element of heavy music that we know and love.

Styx is a bass-led breather that still feels imposing and all-encompassing, as if the river from which it takes its name is swallowing the listener whole. It’s a fantastic piece of work from bassist Boris Patchinsky and still manages to stand out as a monumentally evocative moment on the album, sandwiched as it is between the colossal Bridge Of Death and the expansive Tiresias, the two longest tracks on Gods.

The closing track of the album, Truth, sees the only credited vocal performance on the album, as SAAR call on Wolve’s Julien Sournac to deliver a Chino Moreno-esque accompaniment. After a somewhat bruising voyage, these final five minutes provide something of a safe haven to end the album’s journey, and it’s interesting to hear how SAAR’s brand of instrumental metal could evolve or be adapted in the future. It would certainly be a pleasure to hear more vocal performances on their work over time, although their more typical fare is spellbinding enough as it is.

Gods is a near-perfect release from post-metal’s next bright light. SAAR deserve to be sharing the stage with the heroes of the genre and this record needs to be on the radar of every post-metal fan.

Rating: 9/10

Gods is set for release on November 19th via Source Atone Records and Klonosphere Records.

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