Svartanatt – Starry Eagle Eye – Album Review

Imagine that you’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Imagine if Thin Lizzy had been around a decade earlier and had employed Deep Purple’s Jon Lord to man the keys! Imagine if The 13th Floor Elevators had actually made a name for themselves – they should of done, Roky Erickson is a genius! Imagine if Arthur Brown had fronted Black Sabbath – as crazy as that sounds!

Whatever image and/or sound this ‘twilight zone’ of possibilities conjures, you’ll be damn close to the reality of Stockholm’s Svartanatt – a band in awe of the 60’s but bringing a fresh take to the resonance that first invented this thing we call hard rock/heavy metal.

If first track “Children Of The Revival” isn’t the mantra for Svartanatt’s very existence we’ll eat our floppy suede hippy hats and as openers go, it’s a fucking doozy! Groovy, husky and adorned with a hard-edged psychedelic streak it sets the tone for Starry Eagle Eye from the get-go!

“Wrong Side Of Town” then takes Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” back to the 60’s and rings a real wild child of a tune out of it. Kicking ass in the name of rock it’s rivalled only by the excellently titled “Duffer”, which hits the psychedelic mother-load as Svartanatt get particularly ‘trippy’ on our asses and deliver the catchiest track on the album. The hard-hitting “Hit Him Down” then proves itself to be a top choice for a single (it was, way back in September) where more than a little Sabbath collides with the MC5 to whip up a fever-dream of glorious noise.

These are just the highlights as the entirety of Starry Eagle Eye delivers on a massive scale and with Jani Lehtinen’s excellent vocals layered on top of organ drenched heavy rock, this is the kind of music that’s always going to sound timeless; trapped in a capsule of sound that will forever please fans of guitar driven commotion and clangour. 8/10