Act Two for Stoned Jesus.
Although the Ukrainian band has been around since 2009, it wasn’t until last year that it embarked on its ambitious trilogy. So 2026 marks the release of Songs to Moon on Season of Mist for Igor Sydorenko (guitar/vocals/bass/keyboards), Andrew Rodin (bass/vocals, ex-White Ward), and Yurii Ciel (drums, Schattenfall, ex-White Ward).
The band now features Ihor Biriuchenko on drums.
From the very first seconds, Under the Skin proves to be very intense, offering a sound that’s certainly Stoner-oriented, but with heavy, thick Post-Metal influences that allow the trio to incorporate elements that are not only extremely heavy but also and above all, more aggressive than ever. The tone inevitably softens to develop haunting elements as well as the soaring clean vocals that blend with the aggression, before Velvet reveals more stripped-down and almost eerie touches, though relatively calm and even quite gentle at times. We still find the heavy groove we love, which gently carries us toward ZYX, a track with a rather mysterious name but one that starts off fairly calm, only to intensify as it takes on rock and even slightly Prog-Rock accents. Even without knowing the song, the lyrics feel natural to hum along to, while Syzgy’s instrumental approach alongside Renie Fiske (Dungen) seems hazy, almost dreamlike, leaving us with a strange, almost surreal sense of melancholy. The interlude comes to a close with the arrival of Jackal, which brings back the vocals to complement the simple, unsettling tones that follow the rhythm set by the singer, even during the central moment of madness before a more fluid passage carries us into Window in My Room and its fairly calm introduction. The track uses its length to guide us through a very natural progression, turning the song into an acoustic ballad that lets us catch our breath before moving on to One More Empty Day, the final much shorter yet equally intimate track where we feel as though we’re alone with the band’s frontman as he shares his thoughts with us before moving on.
Highly varied but also and above all much more personal, Songs to Moon introduced me to a very calm side of Stoned Jesus. Some tracks obviously still follow the heavy, aggressive style of Stoner/Doom, but I get the impression that this album possesses a completely different energy.
80/100
