originally written by Erik Highter
Psychedelic stoner rock. Its strictures are a blessing and a curse. Before dropping the needle or pressing play, you know the beats per minute isn’t breaking 70 or so, there’s going to be echo on the vocals, and every cymbal crash will be allowed to resonate fully. The Swedes in Moon Coven adhere to all those conventions, yet somehow manage to sound fresh when so much of the genre has been stale for nearly 40 years.
There are two things Moon Coven have from the opening notes of “Ruler of Dust” that many bands can’t ever seem to find: an earworm of a riff and a properly awesome guitar tone. The riff is a simple one, a drunken ellipse of a figure, with a slight stagger like a hiccup that immediately catches your attention. Then there’s that tone: rich, thick and resonant from bottom to top, no pass filters, no frills. It’s a tone that fills any room, from clapboard walls to cement halls. With that riff and tone locked and loaded, Moon Coven fire off toward the orb they worship. The song clocks it at just over seven minutes, but it could go another five or ten with that riff to carry the load.
The titular track and its dark reflection, “Amanita Kingdom II”, may not have the inescapable riff of “Ruler of Dust”, but they bring the psychedelia more to the fore. The unvarying tempo settles the body and lets the mind go free. Though it sounds perfectly designed for psychoactive substances, it’s an enjoyable experience without them. Both songs become oddly meditative, particularly at high volume. Feel the bass, adjust your heart to the constant beat, and let the mind wander.
Though the first two-thirds of Amanita Kingdom may be some of the best heavy psych to hit these shores in ages, the final third is not in the same class. The main hook of “East” is so close to the riff from “Ruler of Duct” it sounds like it could have been an earlier draft. It follows not only the path of the earlier song, but it aims for the same target and fails to hit with a similar impact. This in itself is no crime, but it’s impossible not to compare and find “East” wanting. Similarly underwhelming but for different reasons, the relaxed closer, “We Were Conquerors”, might have been a good change of pace from the psychedelic fog tucked in the middle of the album. As an end piece, it’s anticlimactic. It’s not a bad tune by any means – there are sections that bring to mind Pink Floyd circa Original Motion Picture Soundtrack From the Film More, which is high, high praise – but it’s an odd way to wrap up what was a heavy psychedelic trip.
A final note: Amanita – the mushrooms that are some of the most toxic known to man, including the fittingly named death cap – is a genus, not a kingdom.
