Qilin is a Paris-based instrumental stoner-doom quartet that’s made a name for itself in the French stoner scene and heavy underground, and they’re returning on January 12, 2024, with a new full-length album, Parasomnia.
The band tells me the new record is driven by dreams and “all states of sleep,” and in it, you’ll find riffs, solos, and lighter touches as they inject more atmosphere and contemplative parts to their sound. When they emailed me, they mentioned they were friends of fellow psych-stoner rockers, Apex Ten, so I was immediately intrigued if they’re new LP sounded along the same lines.
We’ll get to that in just a bit. For now, know that Qilin formed in 2015, and has had a solid lineup since 2017, with Thomas Vachy on lead guitar, Frédéric Bonneau on guitar, Benoît Caillet on bass guitar, and Mathieu Guibert on drums. The band members share a common love of stoner/doom music and various styles at the crossroads of these genres.
From what I can gather, Parasomnia is a concept album in which Qilin aims to tell a rather complicated story. Telling a story on an instrumental album is a difficult task, of course, but not impossible. Like many stoner/doom concepts, it reads a bit like a Dungeons & Dragons type thing, but I don’t say that as a knock on them. It’s very creative.
“Parasomnia is the world of paradoxical dreams. A universe where the soul is torn between sleep and wakefulness, between visions and reality,” the band says. “Born from a period of successive COVID lockdowns, Qilin wrote this new album, conducive to escape.”
The band continues: “The journey begins with Ouro, who gradually draws the listener into the murky waters of dreams and serves as a guide to the Letheus River (Lethean Dreams), a passage between the real world and dreams. This dreamlike beginning gives way to parasomnia, a disruptive element of sleep. The river rushes, and the traveler embarks on a nightmarish ballad with tumultuous riffs. This introspective journey is punctuated by psychedelic surges and dives into the abyss of consciousness.”
I usually don’t include the full context of stuff like this when bands send it to me, but I thought this one was particularly interesting. I like the mythological feel to it, and it reminds me of some Greek myths I’ve read in the past. However, you don’t have to be fully immersed in the concept to appreciate the music. It may help, but the music stands on its own.
“Ouro” opens the album in a wash of guitar feedback and atmospherics. It’s a good opener that sets the tone for the record’s fantastical concepts, bringing a vibe of mysticism and grandeur. “Lethean Dream” is a much longer track at eight minutes, twenty-five seconds, another one that starts with lighter touches. The rest of the album contains plenty of hard-rocking sections, but “Lethean Dream” stays more on the chill side before bursting into louder parts.
“Tayir Alfiniq” clocks in at just over six minutes, and it’s apparent these guys know how to play. It’s a heavy-ass song teeming with energy but, once again, the band balances the light and heavy within the space of the song. That’s the mark in most cases of a good stoner rock band: their ability to not just blow the doors off the place, but to create songs with subtle movements and pacing.
“Innervision” is an interesting song that acts as a short interlude. I really like the guitar tone on this one and the feel it gives of being in a state of reverie. For an album centered on a world torn between dream and reality, some parts of the album have the ability to conjure dream-like imagery.
“Hundred-Handed Wards” comes heavy right from the get-go. I’m not adept enough at technical musical analysis to know how they achieved the phat sound of the bass and guitar, but it’s like the sonic equivalent of a ton of bricks.
“Boros” is the epic nine-minute-plus closer, a song with a bit of a faster pace than the rest of the album. Unlike some of the other tracks, “Boros” rocks hard from the start and doesn’t really let up. It shows that while the band does dabble in psychedelia, they are truly a stoner/doom group at their core.
Qilin’s Parasomnia is a treat for stoner and doom fans, and it’ll likely be a contender in January 2024’s Doom Charts (in my opinion, at least). There are similarities to Apex Ten’s Aashray but Parasomnia doesn’t quite add the exotic and world music vibes of Aashray. Qilin’s newest album does apply more atmopherics than their 2021 debut LP, Petrichor, but it falls more into the stoner and doom metal category than heavy psychedelia.
All that being said, if you want an album that rocks hard and also fulfills your need for fantasy world storytelling, this should be up your alley. My comment about the Dungeons and Dragons may have been a bit flippant, so I’ll add this: Parasomnia’s tale has the hallmarks of Tolkein, too. Pre-order the record now on Bandcamp, which drops on January 12th and will be available digitally and on CD. Enjoy!
Pre-order Parasomnia by Qilin on Bandcamp here.
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