Somehow until now everything but Saturnalia Temple’s music triggered curiosity, be it their cryptic lyrical content, Tommie Eriksson’s occult hard rock side-project The Tower or his link to the ‘Dragon Rouge’, a mysterious magical study group whose leader has penned lyrics for Therion since the mid-90s.
That is, until this second full-length that just might provide the breakthrough they needed. Moving away from their early Electric Wizard obsession, it’s as monolithic as one can be.
Tommie may not be the best soloist or vocalist – drenched in echoes, he occasionally sounds like Abbath from Immortal with a sore throat – but his embrace of darkness has finally come of age.
Whether it’s via gigantic wall-of-sound riffs, or through various sonic effects taken from his classic psychedelic and krautrock collection filtered through a hypnotic use of repetition, To The Other fulfils its curse with flying colours./o:p
