Sedated Angel

Far Beyond Repair

Written by: PP on 06/04/2010 22:00:09

Denmark's answer for Kyuss can be found in Kolding-based Sedated Angel, at least if you are to judge by their album "Far Beyond Repair", a stone cold stoner rock album in a genre buried long, long time ago for a good reason. Because really, other than Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age, which band has put out anything worthy of a praise in the last...say, two decades or so? That's an exaggeration, sure, but it goes a long way in helping me explain why I think Sedated Angel still have years ahead of them before they'll have me raising an eyebrow.

Lets not jump to conclusions so fast, though, and actually discuss what these guys sound like. I can hear at least QOTSA, Kyuss and Fu Manchu in Sedated Angel's sound, each battling for space viciously, one trying to dominate with a stoner rock sound and the other shoving a mouthful of low-tuned bass your way. If you really want to push the envelope, then throw Black Sabbath in there as well as a (very) distant influence. Basically, extremely bass-heavy, fuzzy, down-tuned stoner rock sound that relies strictly on groove and noisy solos as interest points. The attitude of the people behind each instrument is in the right place, I'll readily admit, but where Sedated Angel fails rather horridly is in the vocal department. There are a number of different vocalists giving it a go in the band, but none good (well okay, comparison point being Josh Homme is maybe not too fair, but hey, don't play stoner rock if you can't handle it), which vastly reduces any enjoyment you may otherwise get out of the bands groovy instrumentation.

But even if we decided to ignore the vocals, I'm still not convinced that the song writing is at an acceptable enough level yet for me to recommend this to anyone but the biggest fans of the genre out there, and even these people should proceed with caution. Because lets be honest here, with the choices being a good Kyuss release, a Black Sabbath album, and "Songs For The Deaf", you'd have to be friends with the band or just ignorant to those releases in order to choose "Far Beyond Repair" as your daily fix of stoner rock. But with all that said, all hope is not lost for Sedated Angel. There are a couple of very positive instrumental sections that have me nodding my head and even pulling out the air guitar, most notably "Drug Shovel" (the vocals are actually pretty good here, what do you know), "Black Suits" and the beginning of "1000 Times". If the band is able to further fine-tune their strengths and iron out the weaknesses mainly in the vocal department, I'm sure they'll shore up a much better release. Until then, however, I have little choice than to award them an average mark.

5

Download: Drug Shovel, 1000 Times
For the fans of: Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Queens Of The Stone Age
Listen: Myspace

Release date 18.12.2009
Self-Released

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