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Rating: Rarely have I found myself enjoying a band so much that I can't help but listen to any of their albums at least once a week. Especially in the doom metal field, where (unfortunately) a certain lack of quality and originality is starting to be felt, there is a band never too well-known and loved by the majority that, with every note, every guitar riff, makes my heart bleed and moves my mind toward thoughts of the sweetest sadness. This is the case with Saturnus, who, at least as far as I'm concerned, first with "Veronica Decides To Die", then with the present "Martyre" (preceding it), succeeded in shaping what I consider to be one of the most elegant, somber, majestic yet easily digestible dooms composed so far.
The six strings weave textures now raw, heavy and mortifying like cilices on bare shoulders, now aching but sweet and gentle threads that, like invisible hands, embrace and cradle you. An all-too-excellent singer acts as a ferryman through these desolate lands, a bold bard of unfulfilled desires, passions long consigned to oblivion, and romantically (literarily and artistically speaking) declarations by the light of a faint moon, on lawns wetted by a low fog bordered by a sinuous river with a slow flow.
Exceptional lyricism is exalted in tracks like "Inflame Thy Heart", a voluntary exposure to pain and conscious torture, reaching one of its peaks with the beautiful "Noir", blessed once again by a fearsome harmony among all the instruments and once again guided by Thomas' clean voice, subdued and lacerating, a prayer aimed at overcoming a latent pain never gone, a sadness dictated by the ghost of a person who once held your hand, and who has now decided to follow a different path, far away from you.
The guitar work in "Softly On The Path You Fade" is moving, heartbreaking and annihilating, a piece echoed by counterpoint by the proud and majestic "A Poem" and "Lost My Way", paths drawn on a land of melancholy and sadness, to which one seeks a cure in resentful and turbid anger, albeit reasoned, screamed in deep and feral growl by the singer.
"Thus My Heart Weepeth For Thee" is poetry within poetry, a worthy close to an excellent work, a mid-nineteenth century painting long veiled but whose crystalline class deserves attention and tribute. I believe every listener is able to identify at least one track on the record that they can adopt and feel as their own: all the tracks would be worth mentioning for any reason, such is the beauty of the album in question.
Honor to Saturnus then, musicians of great ability with an enormous merit, that of having once again given doom that literary-philosophical-artistic spirit it had at the beginning and which, over time, has been somewhat lost. An album, "Martyre", which I comfortably place on the same level as "Veronica Decides To Die", both intense, refined and shocking like a small thing that, with each awakening, gives you the strength to pour all your energies into what you believe in.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Noir (05:34)
Tears to fill the despair
dreams to hunt forever
so fill up my cup with emptiness again
and chase those blackenened dreams on
more time
Nevertheless I'm gone
The drone of snow
as i breathe every second of your nearness
so fill my cup with despair again
and dream those blackened dream one
more time
Nevertheless I'm gone
Help me change
change the pain
my sadness never sleeps
I walk the lonely mile
should I forget your face?
and cast away my dreams?
should I walk away?
would I walk forever?
Nevertheless I'm gone
07 Thou Art Free (04:36)
Look towards the forest
and meet your insignificance
feel the warmth of the ancient fires
look towards the forest
There won't be no tonight
the world dies with her
There won't be no tonight
she's long gone
" Love is dead and thou art free
she doth live but dead to thee "*
Look towards the raven
as he flies away in the dark
look towards the night
that took your love away
There won't be no tonight
the world dies with her
There won't be no tonight
she's gone forever
" Love is dead and thou art free
she doth live but dead to thee "*
[*Robert Deveraux, Earl of Essex]
10 Loss (In Memoriam) (06:50)
Vast outstreched diamond lakes in the sky
the mighty stillness of mountains
rain will fall - maybe forever
winds of mercy, I hope
will take me far from this...
...This desolate place
And I fear you're love will fade away
And I fear there's no end to this pain
And I fear your heart has turned away
And I fear I won't see you again
And in the night I often turn to the starres
this diamond lake of tears
and I think back
when you and I were one
Under this...
...this desolate sun
And I cry for that broken dream
And I cry for for the absence of your love
And I cry for your broken word
And I cry for the loss of your light
In the season of night let it come
that the raven may gueard upon thee
and when pursued by snow, rain, wind
and darkness let it come that I see
with the celestial eyes of bright wisdom
- from the Tibetan Book of the Dead
And I wish your hand were in mine
And I wish that all is not lost
And I hope that whereever you're fine
And I know I miss you all to much
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By fjelltronen
These twelve tears eviscerate hope, martyr the carcasses of impossible dreams, whisper the screaming solitude.
"Martyre" is a long walk among dry leaves of damp paths, puddles of stagnant sadness, old houses with walls wounded by cracks.
