March 2023 Feature Release - The Fallen Edition
Another month flies by, which means it's time to select a new feature release for The Fallen. As it's my turn to choose, I've gone with Saturnus' Paradise Belongs to You album from 1997. I only discovered Saturnus in the early to mid 2000s, but it took no time at all for them to become one of my go to bands for well crafted, atmospheric death doom. This debut is still my favourite of their releases, and hopefully featuring it here provides an opportunity for someone else to discover it.
It would be great to read what you all think of it either below or in review format.
https://metal.academy/releases/3460
Saturnus is one of the more underground bands of The Fallen that has pleased the doomier metalheads with their melodic atmospheric brand of death-doom, having a similar vein to My Dying Bride. They were one of my favorite bands when I was still in that clan, but I'm not sure I'm up for giving this album another chance sometime soon. Maybe one day if I have some of that dark doom in my heart...
Here's my review:
The 1997 debut album from Danish doom/death exponents Saturnus is an interesting one because, while I have a long history with it & can see why people seem to regard it so highly, I’ve always struggled to connect with it on the same level as my counterparts. My first exposure to it came way back in the late 1990’s in the tail end of my tape trading days as a couple of my local Aussie traders were doom/death nuts & made sure that I was across it. I gave it a couple of spins & found it to be mildly enjoyable but it didn’t really stick so I didn’t feel like it warranted return visits. Many years later I would hear Ben waxing lyrical about “Paradise Belongs To You” & it made me wonder whether I hadn’t given the album enough time to sink in. I again returned to it for a quick glance & was left with similar impressions to before so this is technically my third crack at Saturnus’ much acclaimed debut.
Right from the offset it becomes very clear that Saturnus are a quite professional & fairly ambitious extreme metal outfit. There’s a high level of musicality about their sound with lots of different melodic elements at play in their layered arrangements. There’s also a real openness in the way the album is produced & it soon became clear to me as to why. The drums & vocals are way forward in the mix with the bass & keyboards also dwarfing the rhythm guitars which are sitting too far back & lose some of their heaviness as a result in my opinion. I guess I just prefer a darker, heavier sound & it leads me to think that Saturnus have missed an opportunity here as the record sounds a bit light-weight with the piano & synth work being afforded a more prominent position in the mix than the key ingredient of any doom metal release. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means but it’s certainly worth mentioning as it’s definitely effected my overall enjoyment of this release.
“Paradise Belongs To You” is also a highly melodic example of the doom/death subgenre with the band regularly incorporating lighter gothic atmospherics, clean folk guitar work, Celtic new age elements & even the sound of birds singing on a Spring morning at times. The super-deep Septicflesh-style death growls attempt to keep things aligned with the darker side of metal but I don’t feel that they’re all that successful in that regard as this still feels like a more melodic & unintimidating record than I’d ideally like it to. The album cover probably doesn’t help in that regard as, despite the image being a portrayal of death, it’s got a lighter feel about its colour scheme. Saturnus’ logo kind of annoys me too as the reversed “s” on the end looks a bit silly & cheapens the overall effect.
Don’t get me wrong though, this is still a pretty good record. The tracklisting is without fault with the fairly lengthy 68 minute run time possessing a consistent level of class. I just don’t think there are any genuine highlights to speak of & the best moments don’t appear until the last few tracks with “I Love Thee” (the darkest track included & my personal favourite) & the final proper track “The Underworld” being a step up from the earlier metal songs. As usual with me, these two seem to be the least popular of the proper metal tracks on the album which shouldn’t surprise anyone. I also really enjoy the short folk interlude “As We Dance The Paths Of Fire & Solace” which offers some beautifully executed finger-picked nylon-string guitar work.
Look, there’s no doubt a big audience for this type of stuff & I have a lot of admiration for Saturnus’ approach but I still can’t quite get into “Paradise Belongs To You” to the same level as Ben. It just comes down to taste really with some of the best parts of the album sitting much too close to My Dying Bride plagiarism than I’d like. I certainly enjoy the experience while I’m sitting through it but I can’t say that I ever feel like returning to this album & would even go so far as to say that it offers me less appeal than it did on my previous visits.
3.5/5
I am not going to be writing a review of this album as there is one simple yet (for me) glaring issue which I am sure is only something I will have a challenge with and it would just look dumb in an actual review. I get the musicianship and the quality of the performance on show here. These guys are a talented bunch, that much is obvious. What I cannot get past on this record is that bird song sample that is on every track. I get that it is part of the aesthetic but it is so irritating. It is the exact same sample that my wife has on her alarm so hearing the sound that wakes me up each morning and heralds the start of the working day is not something I want to hear on an album. Bizarre I know, but that's my take on this one.
I am not going to be writing a review of this album as there is one simple yet (for me) glaring issue which I am sure is only something I will have a challenge with and it would just look dumb in an actual review. I get the musicianship and the quality of the performance on show here. These guys are a talented bunch, that much is obvious. What I cannot get past on this record is that bird song sample that is on every track. I get that it is part of the aesthetic but it is so irritating. It is the exact same sample that my wife has on her alarm so hearing the sound that wakes me up each morning and heralds the start of the working day is not something I want to hear on an album. Bizarre I know, but that's my take on this one.
I have found that if I listen to it whilst out walking then I don't notice the birdsong samples as there are always birds singing in the background anyway and I've got used to them by now.
OK, I'm a day late, but better that than never, right?
Paradise Belongs to You was the debut album from Copenhagen's death doomers Saturnus, released a full six years after their formation in 1991 they had had plenty of time to work up the material for their introduction to the metallic masses. It shows too, because the band presented a set of well-developed tracks here that it is very obvious they felt exceedingly comfortable with. Production-wise (courtesy of Flemming Rasmussen) they have hit a nice spot between clarity and a sheen of just enough muddiness to render the material suitably doomy and gloomy sounding. They have, however, taken the rather puzzling decision to include a plethora of birdsong samples into the album, which can be a bit distracting, although they are brief enough not to provide any lasting irritation.
Saturnus' whole vibe is very much derived from The Peaceville Three, particularly My Dying Bride's gothic death doom leanings and that sound is exceedingly well reproduced here. Slow, towering chords and distant and ephemeral layers of keyboards combine to produce a mournful and introspective atmosphere while Thomas Jensen's understated vocals, both death growls and cleans, effectively convey a deep and abiding melancholy. The songs are well-written and develop nicely during their respective run times with some particularly melodic and memorable riffs, such as the instantly recognisable one unveiled during Christ Goodbye or the opening riff to Astral Dawn. Their song development ensures that none of them drag on just for the sake of filling runtime, but seem to actually be going somewhere and provide a certain satisfaction at track's end that the listener has completed a journey with the band through a particularly mournful episode in their life. There are also a couple of folky interludes, in The Fall of Nakkiel (Nakkiel Has Fallen) and the short instrumental As We Dance the Paths of Fire and Solace, which break up the doomier material and provide a nice contrast in atmosphere. The album also closes with a gentle, medieval-sounding piece that leads into a final chorus of birdsong.
Instrumentally, the Saturnus guys seem very proficient and everything seems to be very professionally realised but that means naught if you don't have the songs and these Danes certainly do. Sure, it probably sits at the lighter end of the death doom scale, but I actually think Saturnus' songs are better than the comparable material from My Dying Bride, mainly because they don't lean as heavily on the whole gothic schtick. I'm sure that will surprise many readers of this, but hey, what can I say?!
(Very Strong) 4/5