BURNING SAVIOURS – Nymphs & Weavers

Burning Saviours are a Sweden-based band that have released three albums, with Nymphs & Weavers being the most recent. Despite being a newer band, Burning Saviours is decidedly “retro” in their musical approach, with a sound that hearkens back to the doomy, gloomy days of 1970s and early 1980s Heavy Metal and Hard Rock. The band took their name from a very similarly titled song from the obscure – but influential – American Doom Metal band Pentagram, so if you’re of a certain age, you sort of know going in what to expect.

Throughout the process of listening to Nymphs & Weavers‘ nine songs, you might find yourself having a flashback to the 1970s, listening to a vinyl recording in a dimly-lit room with a lava lamp or strobe light doing its thing in the background. There are lots of slow, grinding grooves, big riffs, old-school keyboard flourishes, and the occasional use of a flute on this album, along with at-times florid vocals from lead singer Mikael Marjanen. Burning Saviours will remind lots of people of bands like Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, and Black Sabbath, although they’re nowhere near as heavy as Sabbath. But then again, who is?

On the whole, Nymphs & Weavers isn’t a heavy album by today’s standards, but by the standards that it’s emulating, it’s fairly heavy. You won’t headbang to this album, but it’s still hard-hitting enough, with lots of energetic guitars and grooving rhythms and melodies. Most of the songs are mid-tempo in terms of speed, although there are a couple of moody, slower tracks, like album-closer “Exposed To The Heat Of Solace” that create a strong dreamlike atmosphere. Nymphs & Weavers won’t knock your socks off with raw power and sonic fury, but at the same time the disc is heavy enough. Don’t let song titles like “Dreaming Of Pastries” (not a sequel to “Cups & Cakes,” unfortunately) make you think this is an album for wimps. Despite the silly title, “Dreaming Of Pastries” is one of Nymphs & Weavers‘ fastest songs, along with “The Spellweaver.”

While it may sound like a retro album, Nymphs & Weavers benefit from production that manages to sound modern, while at the same time supplying just enough grit to keep things from getting too slick and polished. In other words, it’s the best-sounding 1970s album not recorded in the 1970s. If they had stuck in some “crackling needle” sounds here and there, it would have been perfect. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be …

If you’re a fan of “vintage” Doom Metal and old-school Heavy Metal, Burning Saviours’ Nymphs & Weavers is just what you’d be looking for.