By Gruesome Greg

The debut full-length from this bass-less Belgian duo takes the first two tracks from their Electric Earth Records EP and tacks on seven more for a runtime of 37 minutes and change.  They start off with the slow, heavy grooves of “Nero D’Avola”and “Skullcrusher AD,” the latter of which throws a few time changes into the mix.  “AB Incunabulis” (yes, they did just follow a song ending AD with one that begins with AB) sounds like it was borrowed from Black Pyramid, themselves an Electric Earth discovery circa 2008.  Songs like “Thor” and “The Hollow” combine fast, thrashy passages with slow stoner grooves. While they show sonic similarities to bands like Sleep and Black Pyramid, SardoniS keeps its songs short and sweet. (I’m not sure if any surpass the five-minute mark.)

And that’s precisely the problem with this record.  The songs, like the lineup of the band itself, seem a tad underdeveloped, like a reasonably well-produced demo tape made to audition a bassist and/or singer.  I doubt that stoner/doom minded musicians are in great abundance in Belgium, but the band would benefit from both in my belief…

http://www.myspace.com/sardonis666

(MeteorCity)

Rating: 6.5