THUS SPAKE ZOROASTER: DOOM-STONE BLAST FROM DEEP SOUTH or Part of the cosmic struggle between truth and lie?
Zoroaster's label, Terminal Doom, just got KBGA a copy of this hefty new gem: Voice of Saturn. We promptly playlisted it. Why? Well, for starters it's got some great pieces of plutonium-heavy rock and roll on it, and when the band gets up a head of steam, things get interesting. There are a couple of delay/echoplex/etc. extra jams pumped in mid-record that add some space and depth. At roughly minute five of the album's first track, a hammered-on piano comes into the mix, adding an entirely pop element to what otherwise might have been just a bludgeoner of a song. I like a doom band with a sense of adventure and enough confidence to know when melody is just another tool in writing music.

Zoroaster (pronounced "zoro-aster") is the latinized version of Zarathushtra, the Persian prophet who kicked it in what is today Iran a couple dozen centuries back. Wikipedia reports that Zoroastrianism's philosophy is based on the "cosmic struggle between asa (truth) and druj (lie)." That's pretty heavy stuff, and sounds like a good philosophy for a heavy duty pot-rock outfit too.

The recording is a good one and it captures what's generally most difficult to capture for a deafeningly loud band, sheer weight and power. Like most music, this record sounds best loud, so tune in, turn up, and proceed the proverbial weedian. There's plenty to dig about this for the non-stoner rock enthusiast too, don't get us wrong. Voice of Saturn just offers plenty to fans of Sleep, High On Fire, Kingdom of Magic and the more epic, sludgy, riffing metal. Only available (on the airwaves) of KBGA 89.9 FM