Ukrainian metal band Stoned Jesus have never concerned themselves with the explicit. “I’m not the big story kind of guy. I don’t write songs that go, you know, from point A to point B. My lyrics are more about the things that evoke a certain atmosphere,” frontman Igor Sydorenko says in an interview. But when the band announced a three-album trilogy, one can only expect some sort of grand narrative that weaves from track to track, album to album. Songs to Sun doesn’t do this. Instead, it cultivates a new path for the band. One that is littered with atmospheric dronings, brash breakdowns, and despondent lyrics that evoke an ire deep within oneself.
Recorded in just nine days, Songs to Sun steps into a world vastly different from 2023’s Father Light. The first of the trilogy, it wastes no time painting the scene, a dark and desolate road in which its own serene stillness gives Sydorenko time to ruminate. “Ten hours to drive/Cutting the night like a knife,” he recounts over a shifting bass line, painting the scene in all its melancholy. Then, as though expressing both the quiet and the abrasive experiences the night can offer, the band pivot into a frenetic breakdown. Guitars are flying over pounding kicks; a bass echoes a deep rumble throughout, and droning violins bring us over the dark valley and into the next day.
Stoned Jesus channel this duality all throughout the record, with several songs taking the form of one long rumination on life itself. “Lost In The Rain” is just that, a wandering soul that pins itself with reverberated guitars and a luscious choir. “We’ll learn to forget/To forgive/This image of you/Just won’t leave,” Sydorenko muses with a delivery that sounds as aimless and directionless as the song itself. This despondency doesn’t last long as his sadness channels into an unfurled frustration then back into a melancholic reprise.
Or take closer “Quicksand” where Sydorenko rapid fires a series of negative thoughts in an unusually straightforward manner. His voice sounds tired, restless, and lacking any motivation or ambition. As his rambling reaches its climax, so too does the song’s folk inspired instrumentation. “Now I’m ready to become what I hate the most,” he repeats for four minutes as the track’s acoustic guitars become violent, the drums pick up speed, and the bass unleashes into a flurry of quick attacks before choking itself into silence.
Songs to Sun seeks to understand itself in a personally defiant manner. It refuses to simply let the riffs roll into the next track, instead opting for a stream-of-consciousness style instrumentation that most accurately reflects their erratic emotions. It is a purposeful switch-up, a comfort that forgoes introspection.
So when tracks like “Shadowland” and “Low” introduce themselves like a lightning bolt, Sydorenko’s pained lyrics are less a plea and more an unbridled aggression. “Nothing I’ve tried would make you glow/So hard to open when you’re low,” he belts on the former, allowing quick double kicks and a pent-up scream to close the track.
Stoned Jesus’ oscillating aggression and intimacy is what makes Songs to Sun’s brilliance so captivating. Underneath muddied guitars, droning bass lines, fast drumming, and unflinching honesty lies a truth that Stoned Jesus has yet to accept. It’s through these wandering ideas that Songs to Sun attempts to understand itself, even if it takes a trilogy to do so.
Songs to Sun is out via Season of Mist.
