Band:	Stoned Jesus
Album:	The Harvest
Style:	Doom metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	February 24, 2015
Guest review by:	omne metallum

01. Here Come The Robots
02. Wound
03. Rituals Of The Sun
04. YFS
05. Silkworm Confessions
06. Black Church

Ukraine's Stoned Jesus provide a strong reason why they should be at the forefront of Ukrainian metal, taking the spot Jinjer are currently occupying. The Harvest may not be the most original stoner album out there, but it more than makes up for it in quality, encapsulating all you want from a stoner band in one album.

Short quick jolts of adrenaline to bounce along to? Yep, "Here Comes the Robots" has you covered. Drawn out doom-inspired journeys? "Silkworm Confessions" does this in spades. The band know when and how to switch up the album to keep the listener engaged and offer up a new element to keep your attention from waning; the placement of each track seems built around this.

Graduates of the Karma To Burn school of stoner, the band build on this formula and give it their own twist by way of adding in elements of Crowbar and Big Business to create one hell of a sonic brew. This sound is on show throughout the album with each different element expanded up in different parts of the album.

The production job fits the mood of each song perfectly, raw and fuzzy for songs like "Rituals Of The Sun" but tight and crisp for songs like "YFS", enhancing the material on show as a result. The riffs are catchy and bouncy when called for and heavy and doom-laden when required; the instrumentation fits like a glove.

Where the album falters is in the inclusion of the track "Black Church", which tries to pull off a doom song but falls off the edge into the melancholic abyss; the band aren't able to pull this off successfully. Combining all the elements shown throughout the album, it trips over its own feet and stumbles through its near 15-minute duration; as a result of this, the production job that was tailored to each song can't keep up and ends up hindering all elements within the song rather than boosting any. That said, it being the last track means you can prematurely end the album upon the end of "Silkworm Confessions" and save yourself a quarter of an hour.

An album and band that deserve more recognition than they have, The Harvest is a must for any fans of stoner or those like their metal riff-driven. For Easter this year, let Stoned Jesus be the blasphemy you indulge in.