SAHG

If Norway's SAHG could keep the vibe they launch at the beginning of this lead-heavy album, they'd be serious Album of the Year contenders. It's a doomy, crushing SABBATH stomp with soaring melodic vocals and ponderous, coffin-lidded grooves, the kind of monumental doom birthed by "Children of the Sea", raised on a steady diet of CANDLEMASS and given the occasional injections of LED ZEPPELIN and early SOUNDGARDEN for vocal prowess enhancement.

After the soul-crushing "Repent", SAHG launch into a "Children of the Grave" lope for "The Executioner Undead", and the band's doom meter lurches toward TROUBLE territory (see "Rivers Running Dry" for some soulful riffage that coulda come right off those legends' late 80's albums). The walls of obsidian doom come back, though, right around "Godless Faith" (after pretty acoustic interlude "Whisper of Abaddon"),saving "Sahg 1" from slipping into a generic stoner groove.

Don't get me wrong, "The Executioner Undead" and "Rivers Running Dry" are great songs. But SAHG is at their most transcendent when they're doing trippy, swirling psychedelic riff-rock with echo on the vocals and great massive choruses carved out of stone blocks. The tone here goes a long way, too – huge guitars, big and booming Bonham drums and enough low end to cause speaker damage. And the vocals are flat-out awesome, like Ozzy minus the years of substance abuse, clear and impassioned.

Not exactly the project you'd expect from ex-members of GORGOROTH, and not exactly the band most would pick to open for CELTIC FROST on their upcoming U.S. tour, SAHG surprises by burrowing backwards into the classics. Their doomier moments are more compelling than the more “rock" stuff, and the album tends to lose steam toward the end — but there's definitely enough top-flight crunge here for worshipers of the riff to lose themselves in.