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Tekhton: Movers of Earth

Summon the album art.Veterans of the Doom Shall Rise festival and named for the plates shifting continents beneath the surface of the earth, Dutch doomers Tekhton come on broadcasting their heaviness before the music is even played. On their Doom Dealer/The Church Within debut, Summon the Core, the five-piece roots into a mineshaft under Sleep’s Holy Mountain and emerges covered in the sooty rhythms of bassist Jurgen and drummer Marcore, raw riffs from Dirk and Ralph and the throaty, young-Cisernosian vocals of Bert-Ren? (last names need not apply). Like The Deep Blue, this is pure Heavy, “Dragonaut”-worship, that unlike a lot of followers, actually manages to capture the oft-forgotten spontaneous aesthetic that was a big part of what made Sleep so influential in the first place.

Soft, acoustic tones permeate the cryptically titled centerpiece track “031045” (which some quick Wikipedia research reveals is the day America firebombed Tokyo during WWII, using the US month/day/year — if they’re going with the European day/month/year, it’s the start of the Tigers/Cubs World Series), but that respite and some other atmospheric movements like that ending side B cut “There be Giants” aside, Summon the Core is bent on weathering monuments to dust and forging in their place a landscape pockmarked with huge three-toed footprints. Boldly opening with the longest tracks, “Oxen of the Sun,” Tekhton set out aLogo! stoner metal challenge: dare you to make it through this. A test of their audience. Very doom.

Focus!That being the case, and cuts like “Terror the Whale” and “It is Death” offering a darker, colder take on post-Sleep riffnosis (that’s riff-induced hypnosis, in case you were wondering), Summon the Core is an easy album to get lost in, but the only question is whether that’s because it’s eating you whole or because all this has been heard before. At least partially acknowledging the second, Tekhton has me leaning toward the first and knowing full well they’ll have no trouble finding like-minded purist zealots among the stoner faithful, I’ll happily take closing track “Apocalypse Machine” as another example of this genre’s enduring vibrance and all the room it leaves for expression and the creation of atmospheres wholly unique and otherwise. Or maybe I just like bands that put a ‘k’ next to an ‘h’ (Drudkh walk by and wave).

It sounds huge. If you want big-ass riffs and all the comforts of home, Tekhton are good to go.

Tekhton on MySpace

Doom Dealer/The Church Within

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