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Saints And Winos We Rise EP Review

By Andy Thunders
Saints and Winos debut EP “We Rise,” is a fantastic, Sabbathesque release with hints of The Obsessed and Saint Vitus. A 3 piece, this band is a powerhouse. Hailing from Rochester, NY, these Doomsters are top notch.
“Death Star,” starts this magnum opus out, a moody, vibey instrumental, with a great swinging riff.  The musicianship is obvious from just the first minute and a half, so tight, so precise, they lock into that holy (or unholy) groove. The music just takes you out on a spacey, stoner journey to the stars, or a soundtrack to the apocalypse. A nice floaty solo, perfectly placed. I like that it’s raw, you don’t hear a rhythm guitar track, which makes it feel real.
“Great Wall,” starts out with a floaty, Obsessed inspired riff. Not so heavy, but a calm, heavy, floaty song. A nice touch. The vocals are so wonderful, powerful, and melodic. This is pure, old school doom metal, or the purest form of metal if you will. I seriously cannot get over the riff in this song, and how it just carries the whole song. The solo in the song is pretty spacey, and images of Mars and Saturn come to mind, just such a beautifully constructed song, not too complicated, but right. The song takes you on a journey, as one riff stops, and seamlessly goes into another one, completely different, but keeping the same vibe, and seamlessly coming back around full circle. Frankly, these dudes are frigging incendiary.
“Queen Sapphire,” is fucking fantastic. The riff, the lyrics, the vocals, the hooks. “Mountains will crumble, and ritches they will burn.” So catchy and morbid. Then it slows down, into a slow, dark dirge, with growls, and haunting, eerie vocals from Amanda Rampe, making it sounds like an old hammer film, it’s just so bloody good. And once again the guitar solo is just so fitting and perfect. Hauntingly Beautiful.
“We Rise,” starts with a one, two count on the highhat, and goes into this amazing sick riff, and great lyrics. “This is your invitation to your demise, so make your arrangements”, so fucking catchy and eerie. It goes into a slower dirge part on the chorus, but this massively badass riff that has a groove, carries the verses. It sounds like it could be about the people taking over and killing the evil bastards, that hold us down, or witches taking over and killing every single simple-minded puritans, whatever was the inspiration, and whatever you make of it yourself, in your own mind, is just as legitimate, but let me tell you it is powerful. The grooves and the sonic haunted kaleidoscope of metal is just what I believe makes any song good, and there’s not a bad song on this ep to be found.
“Ass Mountain,” starts off with an eerie arpeggio, and builds on this slow, dirge like Saint Vitus sounding riff, that carries the song like a damned caravan, descending the steps to hell. Then an awesome old school riff comes outta nowhere, and the song is moving on a motorcycle, down route 66 just speeding. Speaking of how most of the drones in society just don’t look past that fact, that they work their asses off just to die. Then it breaks down with this similar, slow, awesome groovy riff, before going back to that awesome chorus, then to that second dirge riff, my god these guys take you on a journey sonically, like Sleep or Led Zeppelin would, in their own way. Then it slows down for such an awesome spacey, vibey solo. I have to say, everything rock n roll today, mainstream commercial rock, is lacking everything that Saints and Winos have. To write authentic music from the heart, and view music as an artform like they did in the 70s. The ending is riding on a dirge like riff, with a beautiful, damned choir like vocals. This band is acutely phenomenal, absolutely amazing. They don’t just play straight, they react to each other musically, like bands used to. They lock into some cosmic trip and they groove out, there’s really no other way to describe it. Absolutely amazing!
1. Death Star
2. Great wall
3. Queen Sapphire
4. We rise
5. Ass Mountain
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