The stars have long held a fascination for humanity: amongst them are our species’ collective hopes and fears; our origins and our eventual demise. It’s little surprise that everything from creation myths to modern sci-fi epics takes root there, and music is no exception to that. The fact that Epimetheus have taken their name from the Titan who doomed mankind to ignorance and the name of their debut album from the doomed starship of Philip K Dick’s A Maze Of Death says a lot, not only about their reverence for vintage sci-fi and Greek mythology, but also for the humanity that lies at the centre of their allegorical tales.
Sonically, the trio take their cues from the heavyweights of stoner and doom of years past, little splashes of Clutch and Sleep interspersed with the obligatory Sabbathian riffing. On the flip side, each of these seven tracks demonstrates a flair for smart yet intuitive songwriting, making the most of their strengths and limitations as a three-piece, while a resolutely DIY approach to playing and recording gives it an old-world grit that feels perfectly aligned with their retro-futurist aesthetic. Listening to these songs, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to conjure scenes of space-faring truckers and lone visionaries pitting their wits against ancient gods (who may or may not be aliens).
The first thing to really grab you upon pressing play is that this has maybe the warmest bass tone in a heavy record in years and Ben Price makes excellent use of it, his grooves setting tempo and atmosphere while providing a strong melodic backbone. It’s his handiwork that’s all over opener ‘Earthbound’, a steady motorik thrum that allows ample space for Cillian Breathnach to summon heady riffs, an inspired solo or two and an amplifier-busting amount of fuzz and reverb; ‘Coalesce’ reins in the pace before letting rip with a tsunami of volume and chaos as James Jackson works his kit with equal parts abandon and precision. Epimetheus’ decision to record live works at its best on cuts like this, where the sense of all three players feeding off the energy and momentum of each other is blindingly apparent right up until the moment the whole thing comes tumbling down in glorious fashion.
Although there is certainly a versatility to their approach, Perseus 9 maintains a level of cohesion throughout its 50-minute runtime, serving up just as many memorable hooks as it does sprawling cosmic epics that warp space and time as they drift from one towering passage to the next. ‘Drift Beyond’ delivers the former, a bite-sized slice of stoner grunge that gives Price the chance to show off his vocal range with some unexpectedly tender lines, while the latter is covered by ‘Held No More’, a 10-minute slab of ritual doom that sounds like Sleep soundtracking the moment when our Venusian overlords finally return to Stonehenge and explain what it’s all about. Somehow, the title track manages to cover both aspects as it unites lumbering doom, spaced out jams and an innately hummable chorus in a way that makes way more sense than it should.
As far as debuts go, Perseus 9 ticks every possible box. While there are certainly enough nods to the past to lend the record an air of warm familiarity, it feels uniquely them, be it in the warmth and intimacy of their tone, the strength of their musicianship and songwriting, or in the intuitive way in which all three treat their instruments and each other as extensions of themselves. There’s a sense of fluidity across these colossal slabs of stoner doom and for anyone who feels that heavy music is starting to become a bit tired, Epimetheus might have what you’re looking for.
