Staring into the melting, golden-crisped crown upon the apex of their climb, where the peak bites at the atmosphere and burns black spots into their eager eyes our protagonists find blissful fever-sighted inspiration within the writhing, bubbling mass above. Malmö, Sweden-based psychedelic stoner rock/doom metal quartet Moon Coven align under changing skies as they set upon this luminous paradigm shift of a fourth full-length album, adapting their sound to represent an entirely different mindset and a much needed point of evolution within their realm. Though they’re day-tripping in wide open spaces this time around these folks are still beaming with a modest gift for slow-burning oaken psychedelic doom yet fundamentally changed.

Moon Coven formed as a quintet circa 2012 in southern Sweden (Jönköping) as more of a stoner rock/metal group working several stylized ideas old and new into their solid enough first LP (‘Amanita Kingdom‘, 2014) which’d done well enough to convey the level of stoner rock, psychedelic doom metal and 70’s heavy rock minded muse the band were working with. Beyond that point their gig began shifting deeper into the realm of stoner/doom metal with the somewhat underrated ‘Moon Coven‘ (2016) which was decidedly more Uncle Acid than it was Monolord yet we’d find the band lumped in with heavier doom metal bands despite the brighter-shining 90’s stoner sabbathian energy of their material. With ‘Slumber Wood‘ (2021) Moon Coven would establish themselves as a notable heavy doom metal band, an enormous record that’d only been matched by Alastor‘s record that same year in terms of innovative yet classics burnt Swedish heavy psychedelic rock/stoner doom. The steady, wood-grained and dramatic bounding of that third LP had it stoney side but it’d felt like a stab at something slightly more modern, post-music dramatist in its second half and… I suppose none of that really translates to what they’ve done with ‘Sun King‘, a celebratory and baked-in-the-sun sort of record which jams a bit harder, eases their extreme heft, and aims for some more accessible angles on the way up the hill.

Something else under the sun. — It’d be fair to assume the band’ve relented back to their stoner rock roots in some sense as the bustling, swinging jam into opener “Wicked Words in Gold They Wrote” jogs into view, a groaning yet anthemic pit of a song which sports a far less morose but still contemplative tone than expected, run-on riffs and heavy psych expressivity one might expect from something decidedly more mainstream (albeit ancient) in its intent as they eventually squeeze out a screaming lead to finish off that first impression with style. It surely isn’t ‘Slumber Wood‘, not even kind of touching upon that moodiness for a moment and the buzzing stoney attack of that opener carries is momentum into the first three pieces. “Seeing Stone” is an alright up stoner metal song with an ebullient, spirited yet fairly harmless gait to its movement, a less than notable step taken towards early highlight/title track “Sun King”. I’d found these songs energetic and inspired in their introduction to a different side of the band, it was clear enough by the time we’d hit “Below the Black Grow” that this record was for an entirely different audience and constituted a bigger step away from psychedelic/stoner doom metal tenets than expected.

While “Behold the Serpent” (and to a lesser degree “The Lost Color”) still represents those doomed tendencies ‘Sun King‘ is decidedly puffing out its chest as a stoner rock record by a wide margin with some garage and alternative rock influences throughout. The doom and stoner metal side of the band is more of a muscle memory deal at this point and the creative alt-stoner edge of singles like “Guilded Apple” point toward a different mindset and mood entirely. I don’t intend to belabor the major point of change down to sub-genre alone here, they’ve managed a strong amount of variety on this well-rounded accessible rock record, yet it will likely serve as a shock for some per expectations previously set. There isn’t much else to really yank from the experience from my point of view as ‘Sun King‘ is entirely consistent in its buzzing mood throughout its ~47 minute run as a moderate stoner/doom metal influenced heavy psychedelic/fuzz rock record. For most listeners that minutiae of categorization doesn’t matter and the result will be a good time, a fairly involved record which serves as a new start for Moon Coven. A moderately high recommendation.

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