Stoned Jesus
First Communion

THE REVIEW

Stoner rock, even from Ukraine. Palm Desert is also ideally Kyiv and "First Communion" is the first real cry of Stoned Jesus, a small underground entity from the east that released the album in question in 2010 through "Solitude Productions".

Halfway between the acidic doom of the early Sabbath and the massive stoner of Kyuss, these 3 musicians have delivered a debut capable of making a mark. By reworking the archetypes of the genre's "great masters," Stoned Jesus found their personal formula, well asserted in the excellent "Seven Thunders Roar" (2012). A stoner/doom with monolithic and “progressive” traits, as can be imagined from the track length. Igor Sidorenko (vocals and guitar) delves into the darkest shores of vintage doom without losing sight of a very specific ideal horizon: that of the dear old '70s, the dawn of an entire way of understanding rock. The opening track "Occult" is the manifesto of all this, with its guitar saturation and those lurching rhythms so dear to Reverend Bizarre. Foggy psychedelia in "Red Wine", the shortest of the lot before the two long and multifaceted "Black Woods" and "Falling Apart": the first is a long ride among rebellious riffs, wah-wah and sudden accelerations and decelerations, the second is the one that most recalls Kyuss, with its intro similar to “Asteroid,” before losing itself in long instrumental explorations worthy of the most energetic Sleep.

Four tracks of seminal Eastern European stoner. Few frills, no stylistic self-indulgence, but a lot of attitude and knowledge of the subject. A first compact CD, also accessible to non-lovers of the genre, despite the average length of the songs. It's a pity for a perhaps excessive repetitiveness in some passages, the result of an experience that the band probably did not possess in perfecting their debut work.

1. "Occult" (9:59)
2. "Red Wine" (5:05)
3. "Black Woods" (11:45)
4. "Falling Apart" (13:26)