Moon Coven – Sun King
Moon Coven – Sun King
Ripple Music
Release Date: 25/08/23
Running Time: 44:45
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
Dark Juan is sober. When Dark Juan is sober, he is sometimes prone to dark thoughts, and this leads me to reach out to everyone out there who is struggling with their mental health. Especially with the elongated October that has been the British summer so far this year. It is now late August, and it is surprisingly cold at times and most of July was spent being pissed down on. However, I digress…
Remember, you are valued. You are needed. You are wanted. You are important and you are valid. Dark Juan would be tremendously upset if anything were to happen to you. Please reach out to whoever you have if you are struggling. Or even someone you don’t know that well. As long as someone knows and doesn’t reject you then that’s groovy.
Dark Juan is here for you all and operates an open inbox policy on my social media. Dark Juan loves you all.
In other news, I am alone on my sofa as Hodgson Biological-Warfare and His Tiny Satanic Majesty Mossy Boggart Grimshaw Cravensworth III are engaged in a titanic, never-ending struggle for the considerable joys of the lap of Mrs Dark Juan. It would be nice if Dark Juan got a fucking look in occasionally, the furry fucking parasites. She is chortling to the stylings of Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Rachel Fairburn’s All Killa No Filla podcast while creating another piece of art that looks like it has been dragged from the Stygian depths of Hell. Or as it is known in our house, Mrs Dark Juan’s normal state of mind.
If you are a regular peruser of the shite I write, you will be aware that I reviewed Swedish Psychedelic rockers Moon Coven’s last release a couple of years ago and found much to enjoy about it (https://www.ever-metal.com/2021/07/20/moon-coven-slumber-wood/ being the link to click should you wish to expand your minds) and it was with considerable enthusiasm that I chucked “Sun King” upon the revolving death machine that is the mighty Platter Of Splatter™.
It turns out that enthusiasm is not what is required to listen to a Moon Coven album. You need to be in a centred, spaced-out frame of mind as their music is too slow to be enthusiastic to. Post- Sabbath riffing and drawn-out compositions are the order of the day here (the ending of ‘Behold The Black Grow’ being a prime example of the art, grinding away to feedback-enriched ending note for over a minute. Kind of like a trip you are experiencing after hitting the downers first. The colour and shade and sonic warfare are still there, but your drug-addled nervous system has a palpable delay, and everything hits you several seconds after it has already happened…) .
One great strength of Moon Coven is the atavistic howl of vocalist/ guitarist David Regn Leban. Rarely has there been a singer as suited to the music as young Dave is. His voice is perfect for this kind of Psychedelic Heavy Rock. It should be mentioned that Moon Coven’s previous releases were more Stoner/ Doom oriented than “Sun King”, but Dark Juan contends that the new sound Moon Coven have debuted on this record is considerably more accessible and dare I say it… fun? Don’t get me wrong, there is still a strong Stoner edge to the music but it is more Wolfmother than Electric Wizard these days. This poppier, more accessible sound really allows the music and the songwriting to breathe and the band just sounds massively more confident and expansive – Moon Coven 2.0 really is a LSD tripping groove machine nowadays. ‘Gilded Apple’ really is a bit special, everything gelling perfectly into a cosmic trip through musical galaxies where you can see chords and hear colours and smell lyrics and taste vocals…
The production on the record is very good as well. I had complained about the previous record being somewhat bass-heavy and this detracting from the overall experience. This has been rectified splendidly and the bass now operates almost like a third guitar, trading riffs with the guitars and at times being the lead instrument and at other times so rumbly and delicious that San Francisco is in danger of being swallowed by the Earth every time Moon Coven go within a hundred miles of it. The drums too are much improved, everything being clean and easily discerned, even through the heavy-as-fuck welter of fuzz from guitars and bass. In fact, everything is much cleaner and more balanced, apart from my state of mind. There are times, however, where the music just borders a bit on too much noodling for noodling’s sake – although the riffs are mightier than the exploits of Conan The Barbarian and Slaine and the crew of the starship Enterprise combined, there was the odd moment or two where you wish that Moon Coven would just get a fucking move on already because the riff they have been concentrating on for the past two and a half minutes, mighty and puissant and throbbing with prowess though it is, it is becoming a bit repetitive. Unless you like throbbing prowess for a long time in one go. In which case you’ll be thoroughly satisfied. I know lots of people who love throbbing prowess for an extended period of time. They rarely leave disappointed. More often than not they leave exhilarated and spent.
Time to wrap this load of nonsense up then. Moon Coven are a splendid band, whose slight change of trajectory has reaped all kinds of heavily medicated benefits in the form of even more groove than they possessed previously and a massively more accessible sound. Dialling down the Doom has opened up whole new galaxies of sound for Moon Coven to voyage among.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Det patenterade värderingssystemet Dark Juan blodstänk) has finally come back down to Earth (all the acid has worn off after an extended trip) and awards Moon Coven 9/10 for an excellent record in all respects.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Wicked Words In Gold They Wrote
02. Seeing Stone
03. Sun King
04. Behold The Serpent
05. Below The Black Grow
06. The Yawning Wild
07. Death Shine Light On Life
08. The Lost Color
09. Gilded Apple
LINE-UP:
David Regn Leban – Guitar and vocals
Axel Ganhammar – Guitar
Fredrik Dahlqvist – Drums
Pontus Ekberg – Bass
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
