ALBUM REVIEW: Somnus Throne – Somnus Throne

Anonymous doom collective SOMNUS THRONE claim to hail from across the US – New Orleans, L.A., Portland and San Antonio specifically. Having provided enough identifying information to narrow their identities down to a few million people, they instead serve up a heaping platter of psychedelic doom to speak for them. Said platter takes the form of their self-titled debut album, a mammoth exercise in fuzzy stoner doom that owes almost its entire existence to their influences and innovators of the genre.

Those influences make themselves crystal clear once the requisite intro track gets out the way. Caliphate Obeisance is 44 seconds of distortion and weird noises and moves swiftly into first proper track Sadomancer. Across its five tracks, Somnus Throne does one thing particularly well and unsurprisingly, it’s riffs. Drawing heavily from the ELECTRIC WIZARD school of thought, riffs are glacially paced, droning affairs with a guitar tone thicker than tar.

The band certainly know what they’re doing; crafting monolithic slabs of sludgy SABBATH inspired riffing and a hefty dose of psychedelia swirls throughout. Vocally there’s nothing truly special going on; second track Shadow Heathen is a step up from the preceding track but still relies on ethereal tones that are often lost in the mire. Closer Aetheronaut – Permadose takes a different approach, with a gruffer vocal style that works tremendously well for the bongripping bonanza on display and makes you wonder why this wasn’t employed before or more often. 

It’s not all hazy sunshine and rainbows though. Songs are interminably long which, while certainly a hallmark of the genre, the band don’t quite have the ideas to fill. There’s enough ideas per song for perhaps a four-five minute track but that’s besides the point as this particular style of doom is meant to be repetitive, the riffs grinding constantly to create a trance-like state. Even then songs do outstay their welcome, with all of them sitting over the ten minute mark and Aetheronaut – Permadose being a whopping fourteen minutes. Receptor Antagonist is the weakest song on the album, with even less variety in both tone and timbres than others, making its ten minutes feel far longer than it is. 

When all’s said and done, what SOMNUS THRONE offer up is a platter of derivative, unoriginal psychedelic doom that’s executed well enough to keep things mostly entertaining. The riffs, while unoriginal, do exactly what they’re designed to do, bludgeoning listeners into a hypnotic daze. The monotonous vocals and drums succeed in pounding away any last vestiges of resistance and the end result is a sound heavier than a black hole, with much the same effect. Not essential listening but entertaining nevertheless.

Rating: 6/10

Somnus Throne is out now via Burning World Records.

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