Band:	Sleestak
Album:	Aeon
Style:	Psychedelic rock, Stoner metal
Release date:	July 07, 2020
A review by:	BitterCOld

01. Infinite Eternal
02. The Void
03. Black Iron Prison / Submerged
04. Distant Lights
05. Keepers Of The Illusion
06. Out Of Body
07. Omelas
08. STCFTHOTS [Pink Floyd cover]
09. The Summer Lands - Basement Jam [bonus]
10. Staking A Claim Upon The Open Fields Of Shadow - Basement Jam [bonus]

The drive from Phoenix to Tucson is a boring one. 100+ miles with one scenic peak around the halfway point. And lots of boring. Facing this drive back to my old stomping grounds, I was lucky enough to be sent a pre-release copy of Sleestak's latest, AEON.

Facing 100+ miles and 80 or so minutes, there was but one thing to do in my rental car. Crank the stereo (and the A/C) and set the controls for the missing pylon.

It's been almost a decade since the reptilian doomsters released their last full length, The Fall Of Altrusia, which I described thus:

Quote:
"The band is still anchored in Stoner Doom, but in much the same way Halley's Comet is anchored by the Sun. Powerful doom riffs and shouted vocals make a stirring appearance before the band takes off for a long space voyage. For those slow with metaphor translation? this album is like 35% stoner doom and 65% tripping balls and floating through the cosmos."

AEON sees the band furthering this trend with a much, much wider orbit. Like two short flights zipping over Metalstan's airspace before resuming their path off [url= https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/PIA17046_-_Voyager_1_Goes_Interstellar.jpg ]past the Oort Cloud[/url], blowing past V'ger en route.

You can see why this made a great soundtrack for a long, boring drive. Kept me wistfully blissfully floating along as the miles passed.

So what does it sound like? I guess the easiest descriptor for the album would be their choice in a closer - a cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun". Go in to the album expecting something along these lines and you'll have a good trip.

If you want to get your metal on, "Black Iron Prison/Submerged" and "Keepers Of The Illusion" are tracks for you. Schmitz's familiar growlyhowl atop trudging doomsludge riffs you might recall from spots of Fall Of Altrusia or Skylon Express.

Additionally, sprinkled in throughout the album are some of the other Sleestakisms such as the foreboding single-note, clean reverb echoey notes. That particular innocuous yet ominous sonic trick is a welcome return.

While I do have a few fave tracks - "The Void", "Black Iron Prison/Submerged" and "Keepers Of The Illusion" which encapsulates the album succinctly, would both be good starter points (though "BIP/S" takes some time before the stomping of the distortion pedal) to see what's going on, the album is best taken as a whole, as needed, for numbing.

And sentimental schmaltz to close this out - way back a decade ago Marcel sent his first "Awesome Package of Doom", a box stuffed full of dome/stoner t's and cds, including Faal, Profetus and a copy of Skylon Express. Been a huge fan since. If you find yourself grooving on this remotely as much as I am, be sure to pour a little of yer fave firewater out for the big man. I get the assist, but he deserves the credit for the goal, as it were.

Set the controls for bandcamp