From the Ashes of Norway’s Tombstones, SÂVER Rises!
If you were among the legion of diehard doomers disheartened by the demise of Norwegian metal legends TOMBSTONES, whose tenure stretched over a decade and sunsetted with an emotional finale at Psycho Las Vegas (filmed by yours truly), there’s reason for you to now take off the sackcloth and wash your face of its ashes. Mourn no more, my friends, for a new phoenix is rising from fate’s graveyard.
Meet SÂVER, a three-piece act out of Oslo that features one of the Tombstones founding members, Ole Christian Helstad, along with that band’s youngest additions, Markus Støle (who was represented on Tombstone’s last album, the critically hailed Vargariis) and Ole Rokseth (who joined the band for their final stretch, including the aforementioned one and only triumphant North American appearance. In the year following, Markus and Ole the younger returned to dabble in a two-piece machine of theirs called HYMN – a characteristically stormy Nordic outfit whose album Perish (released on Svart Records and debuted right here in these pages) got high marks on Doomed & Stoned’s Heavy Best of 2017.
We’re SÂVER, and we play it heavy.
While SÂVER is fresh to most of us, the band has been in the works for nine months and counting. I was naturally curious about the choice of name and, since Google Translate wasn’t helping much, I decided to reach out and just ask SÂVER like a good journalist. “It has a Norwegian meaning, yes,” Ole Christian Helstad confirms. “It means to be sleeping, but in dialect form.” The name came by way of a close friend of theirs, in a hazy daze, while hanging out at his farm house this summer. From there, Ole tapped the same lads that’d impressed him some years back at that Friday night HYMN gig in Tigerstaden.
Just days ago, there were exciting new developments when SÂVER teased a grainy, but woundingly heavy chunk of sound on us via Instagram. This was followed days later by ten solid minutes of heavy jamming on YouTube, giving us all a taste of what you’re in for in the months ahead.
Did I mention a SÂVER album is forthcoming? Oh, yes. I’d been receiving updates from Ole Christian Helstad on this matter throughout the week. “Good morning from snowy and cold Oslo!” he writes on the day before last. “Things are going down fast now and just wanted to know we booked studio time last night. We’re heading to Studio Underjord for five days in May and will record a full debut album.” That’s fantastic news, because SÂVER owns a harrowing, ground-shakingly heavy sound that demands to be heard by the heavy underground at large.
“This band channels emotions in a deeply aggressive and desperate manner, reflecting on how everything would turn to the better if you just gathered a group of friends, and took off into space.” The band tells Doomed & Stoned. You can certainly hear the depth of feeling, the pain even, in those unhinged wildman vocals. “The music is heavy as fuck,” Ole adds, “also taking advantage of a KORG MS10, for some synth spice.” Meaning, we’ll get some atmosphere to match the raw intensity of SÂVER’s downtuned devastation.
While we wait for further developments about SÂVER’s impending recording sesh in high spring, look for leaks of the new material, interviews, and more on the band’s Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube pages, as well as right here in Doomed & Stoned!
Red Skies & Dead Eyes:
Tombstones Descend On Vegas
~Interview & Concert Footage by Billy Goate~
Photographs by Elizabeth Gore
As we get closer to the end of the year (and, presumably, the end of the world), Doomed & Stoned continues to unpack memories from the festival of festivals, Psycho Las Vegas. The August four-dayer brought us many unexpected surprises, not the least of which was the first TOMBSTONES performance in these here United States of America. Liz and I were lucky enough to capture the moment (I’m still haunted by that opening song). After the set, riding high on emotion, I caught up with the Oslo doomers for a hotel room interview at the Hard Rock.
Desert Spell: A Psycho Las Vegas Flashback
Reflections of the first annual PSYCHO LAS VEGAS, imagined through the fantasy of a bike gang on their way to the desert in search of truth. Originally aired on Grip of Delusion Radio on Sunday, September 4th, 2016.
Playlist:
- Uncle Acid and the deadbeats - “Desert Ceremony”
- Pentagram - “Be Forewarned”
- Demon Lung - “Pareidolia”
- Tombstones - “Supernoid”
- Spelljammer - “From Slumber”
- BelzebonG - “Witch Rider”
- The Company Corvette - “Stomach”
- Crypt Sermon - “Heavy Riders”
- Disenchanter - “Snakes of the Earth”
- Cave of Swimmers - “The Prince of the Power of the Air”
- Goya - “Night Creeps”
- Behold! The Monolith - “Philosopher’s Blade”
- CHRCH - “Stargazer”
*sound clips from ‘Werewolves on Wheels’ (1971)
- Check out our footage of Psycho Las Vegas on YouTube.
- Back episodes of The Doomed & Stoned Show on Mixcloud
- Explore the heavy underground scene-by-scene through Doomed & Stoned’s quarterly compilation series.
Tombstones: Hell or High
By Zachary Painter
Cover Pic by Stig Løvås
Concert Photos by Marie Solheim (above)
and Lene J. Løkkhaug (below)
Tombstones have always been great, and they always will be. Their last two albums, ‘Red Skies and Dead Eyes’ (2013) and 'Year of the Burial’ (2012), were solid releases that made sizeable footprints in the heavy underground world. But with the latest LP from the Oslo doomsayers, 'Vargariis’ (released on vinyl January 29th via Soulseller Records), Bjørn-Viggo Godtland (guitar/vox), Ole Christian Helstad (bass/vox), and Markus Støle (drums) have created something that far exceeds their previous achievements. This time around, the stentorian riff lords beckon you to enter their barrow, because this record was written to bring respite to your troubled soul.
Vargariis feels immense. It’s prodigious, loud, and impressive. The songs are long and the riffs crunch and churn. The term “wall of fuzz” gets thrown around a lot in reference to this band, and for very good reason. Tombstones have cultivated their own sonic approach to this distinct weapon. While the concept is not particularly new, every iconic act - from Electric Wizard and Belzebong, to Ufomammut and Monolord - have honed some unique version of that wall of fuzz to great effect. Tombstones seems to have found theirs, as well.
Beyond this, there are two other quintessential facets composing Tombstones’ distinctive sound, namely Helstad and Godtland’s vocals (predominantly Cough-esque, gut-wrenching screams, and unsettling, deep bellows) and Støle’s inherent groove behind the kit. The occasional clean vocal section notwithstanding, it’s those harsh screams and growls layered nicely over the turbulent distortion that get our attention, with Støle’s drums providing a deep, driving pocket (at some points reminding me of Spelljammer’s Niklas Olsson). This is the lethal engine that so effectively propels the Tombstones machine. It’s a powerhouse combo with force like a tidal wave that will leave listeners feeling ripples.
Equal parts brilliant and ferocious. It’s new blackened doom from TOMBSTONES. This horrific new video “Oceans of Consciousness” is perfect for a rainy fall’s night! New album ‘Vargariis’ (2015) officially releases December 4th on Soulseller Records, now streaming by fellow blogger JJ at The Obelisk