Our review of Songs to Moon, the seventh album by Ukrainian band STONED JESUS, is now live — and we gave it an 8/10. The record comes out this Friday, October 16, via Season of Mist, about a year after Songs to Sun, and it is the second part of a trilogy.
Igor Sydorenko wrote most of these songs at the start of the pandemic, and the album is built as a slow descent. It opens loud with "Under the Skin", where harsh vocals and Igor's clean voice answer each other over something closer to post-metal than stoner, and it ends with only Igor and an acoustic guitar on "One More Empty Day", framed by the sounds of a city. In between come the catchy chorus of "Velvet", "Syzygy" — the first instrumental on a STONED JESUS album, clean guitars over the sound of wind — the dark, jazzy and then proggy "Jackal", and the melodic rock of "Window in My Room".
In the review we call Songs to Moon a diverse album and a different record from the stoner rock the band is known for, one for people who listen to albums from start to finish. In our interview, Igor told us the third part, Songs to Earth, will hold only two 20-minute songs and should arrive in fall 2027.
We've followed this album all year, from "Under the Skin" in June to the "Velvet" video in August and "Jackal" in September.
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