ALBUM REVIEW: Sardonis – ‘III’

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, and I’ll use that opening statement just as frequently, but you can’t knock a stripped back to the absolute basics two-piece. I’m talking your guitar (or bass) and drums duo. There’s something primal about just going ‘fuck it’ and unleashing punishing drums accompanied by big, fat, fucking riffs. No messing around, just straight to your inner caveman, or even further back to your inner ape. Maybe even straight to the remnants of lizard in your brain.

Whatever it hits, it hits it, and that’s the same area Sardonis aim for. The twosome of Roel Paulussen (guitar) and Jelle Stevens (drums) have been doing the rounds and making a ruckus for a little while now, having previously released two full length albums and four EPs. We arrive today at their appropriately titled third album III. Though the spacious and middle-eastern sounding melodies of ‘The Coming of Khan’ may lead you into an initial false sense of security, slowly unfolding but barely present, almost more ethereal than audible, its brooding mood setting soon ups the ante – and with it the distortion. The track soon double kicks its way into a frenzy and its all riffs and grooves from here on out.

‘Riffs and grooves from here on out’ would definitely stand as a good summary of not just the rest of ‘The Coming of Khan’, but the rest of the album as a whole to be honest. As an instrumental beast, III is slave to The Riff, but that’s clearly the way these two like it. Second track ‘Battering Ram’ confirms as much in its own does-what-it-says-on-the-tin manner; a six minute assault on not just your eardrums but your skull too, relentlessly charging that riff into both – fully intending on them to give way and break. SPOILERS: they eventually do.

‘Roaming the Valley’ is a doomier affair, and again is a kind of lives up to the title affair, given that it sounds a lot like what you might imagine some meandering colossal creature (dinosaur or something Lovecraftian) would sound like as it laboured to carry its obscene weight around a valley. You know if that event was conveyed by guitar and drums. Anyhow, whatever the colossal creature is, it soon finds its stride or gets into a fight or something, I don’t know, I’ve kind of got lost on this analogy, but basically the duo kick up the pace and spice up the riffs, eventually building into a chugged gallop. Until it all gets a bit too much for the creature and it makes for a colossal collapse.

This is essentially what this album is all about, and ‘Ruined Decay’ with its frequent switch up between frantic and downright doomy and sludgey, or sprawling closing epic ‘Forward to the Abyss’ and its extensive amalgamation of all the albumular elements that went before it, but with a more clear focus on melody; albeit it slow, brooding, and miserable as all sin, are no different. On the whole that is both in the album’s favour, because big drums and bigger riffs are its bread and butter, but also somewhat against it because some of the tracks here feel a little limiting and could do with a bit more variety, or just a shorter run time. Which is somewhat ironic, given that the album’s longest track ‘Forward to the Abyss’, is easily its best too.

However, those issues don’t really hold all that much weight to a far heavier album that is a solid tribute at the altar of the riff. If you like bands like High On Fire, or you just like your metal doomy and monolothic but unafraid of a speed injection to kick out the jams and fuck shit up from time to time, you’ll find plenty to enjoy here.