Domkraft – Sonic Moons

 

 

Domkraft – Sonic Moons
Magnetic Eye Records – 2023
Rock, Stoner, Psych, Sludge, Doom, Kraut
Rated: *****

Their 2021 album Seeds took home the Number One spot, according to all your votes, on the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of that year, and it did that, by a landslide. And rightfully so, for the pummeling that Seeds was, that electric, organic, loud, and dynamic battering ram of a record, came at the exact right moment for the world and for Domkraft. And I think we can safely state that their new Sonic Moons has the same kind of energy and feeling, but the compositions offer different insights into the Domkraft capabilities. The Swedish three have been honing their craft since their debut self-titled release from 2015 and they’ve managed to surprise and grow with every release after that. And now, as we arrive on their fourth full-sized album Sonic Moons, the Domkraft three have grown completely into their own and turn their always gigantic sound into something colossal. Karl Daniel Lidén from Dozer, Greenleaf fame who mixed Seeds was producer of name on this release and I think we can assume that the flow and groove that was present on Seeds is there once again because of his guidance. But of course, it’s Domkraft, and their psychedelic doom, their highly fuzzed out take on it, with sludge tones and kraut hypnotism had always been a band that knew how to catch a groove and follow the flow. And where Seeds perhaps started off a bit slower, a bit more open spaced, Sonic Moons makes its intentions clear from the start. Opening track Whispers, with its ominous riff, soon even denser and darker, before it’s allowed to open up, turns more galactic as we continue on and the vocals wind itself along the echoing guitar. And that cosmic edge, turns it all into something even more hypnotic than we are used to from Domkraft. Further and a multitude of hypnotism can be heard on following track Stellar Winds. Those repeating howling vocals, ever rising, growing wilder, until they almost spiral out of control and the drums have to take over its storm, building, together with that masterful bass work and that returning guitar line until that explosive final! Opening an album with two giant cathedral like compositions, subject to a multitude of tension arcs, demands for similar grandiose songs to follow. And third track Magnetism delivers, more restraint in pace and with such glowing reverence of atmosphere, that the Eastern touch makes this doom warm in the beginning and the freak out near the end, chilling. Which together with the Eastern touch seems to nod towards the seventh final track. And well, that final track, The Big Chill, is big and chilling. Chilling in magnitude, even bigger in gestures, Jupiterian even, so grandiose it could dwarf everything that came before. But somehow manages to shine a different light on the Black Moon Rising track that came before and thanks to that Eastern tinged guitar motif in The Big Chill, it gives you handles to grab on to, to get your brain around it all and in a way that it stays manageable. But Sonic Moons on a whole, thanks to its addictiveness, and even though it once again has that obliterating aspect, becomes even more manageable after many spins, their fuzzed out take on psychedelic doom was heading into a certain direction with Seeds, and with this new album sees it taking that corner at full speed, using no handbrakes, but still making the album careen, swing and fly through every sonic bend and cosmic curve with sheer perfection.  

(Written by JK)

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