The name is truly appalling but Denmark’s Pet The Preacher look set to register a presence on the international stoner scene with their debut for Napalm Records – the follow-up to the well-received The Banjo, released independently and on vinyl only back in 2012 (now also available via Napalm).
The Cave & The Sunlight is a confident, authentic and above all professional-sounding sophomore statement, founded upon a strong blues-based bedrock and boasting a surprising quantity of catchy hooklines.
OK, it houses a handful of songs that are simply content to tread water, regurgitating all manner of predictable stoner clichés, but when this album is good – the Monster Magnet-esque Let Your Dragon Fly, the funereal yet incisive Remains, The Pig & The Haunted and a monolithic two-parter entitled Marching Earth – it’s very, very good indeed.
Towards the end two longer tracks, What Now and The Web (the latter only available on its digipack and vinyl editions), allow the three-piece to stretch out and prove their strengths. Here’s hoping that we get to see them onstage before too long.
