FULL ALBUM PREMIERE - Mörkekraft - Fragments

 

FULL ALBUM PREMIERE 

Mörkekraft - Fragments

 
From the cold southern coast of Norway comes Mörkekraft, a three-man force forging heavy rock like iron in a storm-lit fjord... There's something very special about the Mörkekraft three. But you already knew that, cause you've had their Follow The Spiders single on repeat. Right? Well... Today, right before the full Fragments album is released through Octopus Rising / Argonauta Records tommorrow, we are honored to bring you ALL of the singles! That's right... We're honored to bring you the FULL ALBUM PREMIERE for Mörkekraft's Fragments! 

An album that drives hard on all that seventies classic rock, filtered through modern stoner and psychedelic sensibilities. Just open the album, just Follow The Spiders. That opening track, what a battering ram! It creeps, it crawls and it moves every bone in your body! And the entire Fragments album is packed tightly with thick, fuzzed out riffs, grooves straight out of the golden age of rock and a warm analog sound that makes it all feel like a fireside saga sung beneath those northern skies. Fragments rolls forward on those colossal Sabbathian riffs, but the tundra haze is never far away. Echoes of wandering space rock and bluesy laments are woven into the album's muscular stride. And then there are those short moments of more pop sensible, ballad opting songs like Godspeed. Delivered with euqal intensity and cavalier emotions. Turning it all into sun beam bursting through the clouds. Why  yes, they've managed to capture all those dark forces and transform it into something that will induce euphoria. They've found that ancient root somewhere on the road and knew that they had struck gold. Just imagine those candelit taverns where ancient spirits still whisper and you can see the Mörkekraft three listening... 

Now it's your chance to start listening... To that golden hued rock of Fragments, brought to you by the Mörkekraft three!

 

PR Wire:

Mörkekraft – “Fragments” 

Mörkekraft are a Norwegian heavy rock trio blending heavy rock, stoner and psychedelia into a sound defined by massive riffs, atmospheric depth and emotional weight. Often described as “a depressed Thin Lizzy,” the band combines strong melodic sensibility with a darker, introspective edge. Their debut album, “Fragments,” was recorded at Bridge Burner Recording in Stavanger across two sessions in January and May 2025, capturing both a colder, more restrained tension and a more dynamic, expansive approach. Engineered by Ørjan Kristoffersen Lund and mastered by Steven Grant Bishop, the record presents a cohesive and immersive sonic identity. Inspired by northern landscapes and shaped by themes of human struggle, inner conflict and the search for meaning, Fragments moves between heaviness and introspection, balancing fuzz driven riffs with melancholic melodies and a strong atmospheric presence. Across eight tracks, the album explores contrasts between light and darkness, instinct and control, delivering a debut that is both powerful and emotionally resonant.

Tracklist

Follow The Spiders – 4:44
Shine Your Light – 4:10
Godspeed – 4:47
Virgil – 6:00
Soul Confusion – 4:50
Kaleidoscope – 6:04
Evil Eyes – 4:04
Ghosts – 3:44

Release details

“Fragments” will be released on May 8, 2026 on deluxe colored vinyl and digital via Octopus Rising / Argonauta Records.

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram 

Homepage

Argonauta Records

Grand Sounds PR 

 

Single Premiere – We Follow The Earth – Foamdrinker

 

Single Premiere 

We Follow The Earth – Foamdrinker

The opening track, the title track and the final single! We're honored to PREMIERE for you the final single Foamdrinker before the full album by We Follow The Earth arrives on May 12. The Winston Salem, North Carolina four are experts in creating an intense atmosphere while combining sludge metal and doom... And Foamdrinker is another prime example of that proficiency! 

The album talks of a world locked in perpetual winter, where survival demands sacrifice. The atmospheric sludge sound swells like those frozen seas shifting and breaking, ice cold expanses that boom as its weight explodes through riffs. Beneath the ice, both oceanic and internal horrors rise, as selflessness and survival collide in crushing, cinematic tension. Foamdrinker's slow burning riffs start off but you can immediately feel the surging crescendo and the distant percussion nears and the burst of fury that awaits. Heavy, intense and entirely cinematic, We Follow The Earth's sound has meditative qualities, but is often volatile and shifting with restless momentum... Like a storm gathering over all that ice cold water... 

Press play on We Follow The Earth's Foamdrinker right now and be ready for the entire album dropping on May 12th! All done independently, but Nespithe Records is handling the CD's!

 PR Wire:

We Follow The Earth is a sludgy doom band that will occasionally lean into a post metal sound. Located in Winston Salem, North Carolina, the core of their sound is built on slow, crushing riffs, ever present soul shaking bass, and aggressive, strained screams. Started as a solo project for Matthew Crotts, with his brother, Robert Crotts, offering to write the concept story and lyrics for the debut album “Lightbearer” in 2023. Shortly after releasing the debut album, writing started for the 2nd concept album “Extinct”, which was recorded/engineered by Jamie King and released in March 2024. This new album,“Foamdrinker”, takes the listener on a journey through a world that is, for unknown reasons, stuck in a perpetual winter. Facing extinction, our characters are willing to go to any lengths to survive, but dangers beyond the ice lurk in the depths of the ocean and within ourselves. The struggle to overcome these challenges that we are presented with, both the external and the internal superstitions about how we think the world should work from the crux of this story. How we balance selfless acts against selfish ones can save or doom the world.

Album credits:

Matthew Crotts –Vocals, guitar

Josh Burton –Guitar

Jason “Buddha” Myers –Bass

Matthew Pickard –Drums

Robert Crotts –Story/Lyric writer

Engineered by Jacob Beeson

Mastered by Esben Willems (Studio Berserk)

 

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Desert Bloom PR 

Nespithe Records 

American Sharks – Not Dead Yet

 

 

American Sharks – Not Dead Yet
Permanent Teeth Records - 2026
Metal, Punk, Stoner
Rated:

American Sharks play dirty punk rock'n'roll. This album is like taking your first cheap chemical drug trip - frantic, full of bright lights and noise and over too quickly, leaving you wanting more. Waving the flag that Electric Frankenstein and The Hellacopters hoisted high, American Sharks are like a shot of adrenaline mainlined into the brain. Remember when music was about energy, singalong choruses, dazzling guitar breaks, sweat and passion? These guys do. One of my favourite bands used to do this - they all had the surname of Ramone! This album make me feel happy and violent at the same time - a perfect combination. With a bass sound that Lemmy would be proud of, the songs cruise along with an unstoppable drive over which the vocals are spat out. They are not trying to be the darkest or brutal or whatever the fuck this months "core" scene is supposed to be. The Sharks just wanna play fast and powerful and kick some arse on the way. This is the good shit.

(Written by Tony Maim)

Facebook

Bandcamp

Homepage

Number 20 on the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2013

Words on American Sharks – American Sharks

Tusoc – Monolito

 

 

Tusoc – Monolito
Self-released – 2026
Rock, Stoner
Rated: ****

Maybe it was erased by time or blown away... But I was sure I wrote something about their damn fine 2023 release Éter; just as I was sure the new album Monolito would rank high on the April Doom Charts. And indeed, the new Tusoc album made the published list of 40 out of more than 200 albums that received votes. But I assumed it would end up higher. I also found out I never got around to mentioning Éter… Or maybe it floated away on some strange desert wind… 

They have more and earlier releases as well, live album Vivo Desde el Éter from 2025 and Un Ciprés en Llamas from 2022. But Éter felt like a gigantic step forward and onto a road that would always combine their very own mysterious atmosphere around their drifting, floating version of stoner rock. And on Monolito they manage to do that even more, for each track seems to drift like a chapter from a book that never admits its ending, shifting from haze to eruption, from grief to firelight. 

The Tusoc four have this strange ability to create music that is entirely tangible yet feels like it might vanish as you are listening to it, leaving only minor footprints behind. The pages written with ancient soot crafted ink, remembers the dim lit room where the sounds were created. Somewhere inside a forgotten building in Rosario, Argentina, where the stone corridors sparked with electricity and the air inside remembers those old storms. The bass, the drum, they move like that ancient thunder that emptied the streets, while guitars have the keys to all those hidden doors… Sometimes they open to the riffs conjured by the desert heat outside and at other times submerged cathedrals of sound become everything you can see and feel. 

The vocals, distant and in Spanish, feel like the messages that were written on the walls that have long since crumbled, like on those monuments in ruin… Themes rise, fracture, and dissolve into atmosphere, as if the album is slowly erasing the path by which it was travelling, dusting away those footprints. Monolito by Tusoc is an album that will grab you completely and entirely and you will need to grab, with both hands, both ears and your entire heart. Otherwise it might float away on the desert wind… 

(Written by JK)

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Beacons

Black Lung – Forever Beyond

 

 

Black Lung – Forever Beyond
Magnetic Eye Records – 2026
Rock, Prog, Psych
Rated: *****

The American outfit Black Lung released their self-titled debut EP back in 2014 and followed that one up with two albums that matched that first release in quality before blowing all of that out of the water with the brilliant 2022 album Dark Waves. And since the beginning of March there’s a new addition called Forever Beyond, an album that proves to be even more beautiful than all that came before. The psychedelic rock continues to drift ever closer to the sound of All Them Witches, but where that band leans into an increasingly oppressive atmosphere, Black Lung instead expands outwards… Crafting something wide, grandiose, and filled with sweeping gestures. Even when the themes touch on fascism, blind nationalism, and the suffocating machinery of capitalist oligarchy, the music remains strangely alluring: seductive, provocative, and at times even dreamlike.

At moments, the band veers into blues-inflected passages, or even allows hints of metal to surface, but always the result is the same, an invitation to lose yourself, to smile quietly, and to drift into reverie. Added to this is the remarkable voice of vocalist Dave Cavalier, which arrives precisely when needed to deepen the emotional resonance of each passage. The result is an album that stands as one of the finest you are likely to hear this year. Thematically, it may speak to the current condition of human society, and in doing so perhaps achieves a kind of  timelessness. In any case, it all feels as though Forever Beyond has been made for eternity…

(Written by JK)

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Black Lung – Ancients 

Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Artists Last Week…

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s 
Top 10 Most Listened Artists Last Week…

Elder
Tusoc
Birds of Vale
A Very Old Ghost Behind The Farm
Black Lung
The Same River
Glowsun
We Follow The Earth
Pelican
Deathbird Earth

Good morning! After a week filled with three interviews, preparing for those and of course a new edition of the Doom Charts, this one will be marked off by a show in Utrecht by the one and only Hermano! Can’t wait to see the Hermano heroes once again! And with Solace and Troy Torino as pre-show this is one hell of a night! Might be going to bed early, just so Friday arrives early… 

And on the HiVe we managed to post something about the new Iron Jinn single, re-posted those words on Corrosion of Conformity and Phantom Logic. And started with that wild Single Premiere for the new Maliciouz! Have you been healed yet by the glacial doom of Catharticism? Check it out! Check’m all out!

Iron Jinn - The Futurist

 

 

Iron Jinn – The Futurist

Back in 2023, on a hot and sweaty day, I had the honor of being a fly on the wall as Alain Johannes and Iron Jinn went through the setlist of what songs they would be playing for most of the dates they would go out together. A few weeks later, on another sweltering day, I caught that show, live in Nobel, Leiden, where the entire show felt like a wild feverish dream. And that energy is something the band always manages to conjure….

Just listen to the new single The Futurist, a nearly eighteen-minute long progressive rock journey, where you descent into a humid, flickering interior where groove and atmosphere coil like smoke. The band drifts deeper into shadowed prog terrain and become this pulsing, hypnotic, unsettling, yet strangely radiant force of nature, as if some distant light keeps breaking through. If The Futurist is the seminal calling card for the new album to arrive this fall on Suburban Records, we’re all in for one hell of a compelling, immersive and incredibly intense adventure… 

PR Wire:

Iron Jinn presents ‘The Futurist’
…and Reich and Rolls towards the new album

Iron Jinn releases the first single of their upcoming album and simultaneously coins ‘Reich & Roll’ as their new genre. On the 19th of September Iron Jinn present their new album at Doornroosje, Nijmegen. They invited the legendary kraut duo zZz as a special guest. Tickets are on sale now. In the 18-minute epos ‘The Futurist’ you hear jazzy McCoy Tyner chords and riffs like molochs roll into a Steve Reich-ian minimal music jam, where guitars, cellos and keys subtly build a cathedral of sound; brick by brick. A lot of bands are psychedelic in sound, but Iron Jinn excels in mind-bending ideas. A distorted banjo is used to churn out rapid rolls like machine gun fire, while the voices of singers Wout Kemkens and Oeds Beydals reverberate their words about a world where technology is seen as salvation and models and data as messiahs. A reality where people are expected to adapt to the systems instead of the other way around. Later in the song Kemkens croons and echoes the words of Oppenheimer and Plato and just a few moments later (in the closing seconds of the track) you hear the most balls out version of Iron Jinn yet. This band is all about contrasts and it really  shows in ‘The Futurist’. Yes, if you want to be hard as a rock you also have to be sweet as silk.

Youtube

New album

Iron Jinn’s upcoming studio album (september 2026) is their first as a fivepiece. Within the new compositions, seven pieces in 70 minutes, the band places a strong emphasis on dynamics and musical interplay. Unlike their debut album (2023), an ambitious studio project as a trio, this new studio album was refined and deepened on stages through Europe. It introduces new colors in the form of two adventurous players: bassist Gerben Bielderman and keys player Jarno van Es, the latter debuted with Iron Jinn on Roadburn and luckily never left. The album  recordings - under the helm of Pieter Kloos (Motorpsycho/The Devil’ Blood/DOOL) - took place in a former dance studio, quite fitting since the band plays more light-footed than on Iron Jinn’s former heavy, sometimes doomy, studio work.

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Phantom Logic – Salton Dust

 

 

Phantom Logic – Salton Dust 
Glory or Death Records – 2026 
Rock, Psych
Rated: ****

Not to dismiss the rest of the band, cause this is some beautiful long form psych rock! But why is it that sometimes a musician comes along that has that special something, that spark, that energy, that always manages to give a song that extra edge, that extra beauty… The single Glyphwave already felt like riding a sandstorm on a broken amplifier, with no escape possible, your body constantly filled with both serenity and electrical panic. And the entire debut album Salton Dust by Phantom Logic has that vibe and truly sounds like it was dragged out of some ghostly mirage somewhere on the edge of a desert. Sun-bleached, fuzz-drenched, and beautifully unhinged in the best possible of ways. This is heavy psych rock as a desert hallucination: twin guitars slithering and colliding like heat mirages, rhythm section locked into a sand-scorched trance and everything vibrating at its very own pitch. And yes, with Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless igniting around the edges, on every of the four tracks, the record doesn’t just drift, float, or fly, it careens, slides and explodes, turning repetition into ritual and all that majestic tone into terrain. There is no room for compromise and none needed! Why would you even want to escape from all this beauty, mesmerizing chaos and grand desert sermon for tone and volume? Indeed, it would defy all logic…

(Written by JK)

Glory Or Death Records Bandcamp

Instagram

Linktree

Corrosion Of Conformity – Good God / Baad Man

 

Corrosion Of Conformity – Good God / Baad Man
Nuclear Blast - 2026
Heavy Metal, Southern Rock, Sludge
Rated: ****

We love them, and when our resident poet Ronny Dijksterhuis mentioned their Gimme Some More single on a Quick Fire Friday segment, I remembered this was coming. For yes, that single heralded the coming of that amazing new Corrosion Of Conformity album Good God/Baad Man. The last album by COC, No Cross No Crown, was released in 2018. That’s quite a while ago, but a lot has changed since then. Two years after that album, drummer Reed Mullin passed away after a life marked by alcohol and drugs, and not long after that, co-founder and bassist Mike Dean decided to leave the band. That left founder, guitarist, and singer Woody Weatherman and guitarist/singer Pepper Keenan, a member since 1989, as the remaining core. But with newly recruited bassist Bobby Landgraf (ex-Down, Honky) and drummer Stanton Moore, who previously played on In The Arms Of God (2005), new energy and new fire has returned. The result is the double album Good God/Baad Man, over an hour-long journey through COC’s eclectic metal world. The first half is packed with furious metal in all the familiar COC styles, while the second half explores new paths: hard rock, blues, stoner, and even psychedelic touches. Producer Warren Riker described the album during recording as their “Dark Side Of The Doom,” a label that perfectly captures the versatility, intensity, and boldness of this powerful record…

(Written by JK)

Bandcamp

Instagram

Facebook

Homepage 

 

The Doom Charts For April 2026

 

DOOM CHARTS

APRIL 2026

“Hello, Doom Charts, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again…”

~ probably misheard lyrics by Simon & Garfunkel

 

Wow, that felt like an extremely short month! And once again chockfull with amazing releases. So many, that the forty below only begin to scratch the surface of the Heavy Underground. No less than 211 albums received votes, but as always, only forty are published. And those forty and all those others you already discovered or will in the near future, are there to offer you some respite and relief in a world full of constant upheaval. Getting lost in these records might allow the listener to release pent-up, excessive emotions, leading to emotional, spiritual, or intellectual relief and a balanced state. Perhaps the entire world should start listening? 

Indeed, what a month once again! Look at all the heavy splendor! And from the bands that made it I voted for: A Very Old Ghost Behind The Farm, Birds of Vale, Ampacity, Beneath The Skin, Tusoc, Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovell, Black Weedow, Myar, Gurthworm, Elefus, American Sharks, Cesar Sun, White Tundra, Phantom Logic, Angine De Poitrine,  Bismut, Glowsun, Spirit Adrift, Purple Skies, Abrams, Bronco Forte, Occult Hand Order and Corrossion of Conformity... 

But as always... I could have voted for all who made the list! Gonna be starting the rundown soon with Number 40. The very cool Objective Counsciousness by Deathbird Earth... 

 

Already featured on Stoner HiVe:  

Album Premiere - Beneath The Skin - Beneath The Skin

 FULL ALBUM PREMIERE - White Tundra - Stories From The Dark

White Tundra – Stories From The Dark

Abrams – Loon

Bismut – Matsutake 

 

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and reviewers from the heavy underground around the globe.  Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic, progressive and heavy rock albums.  The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart below.  This is a one-stop shop for the best new albums in the world…

The Doom Charts for April 2026 

Single Premiere - Maliciouz - Catharticism

Single Premiere 

Maliciouz - Catharticism

 

Maliciouz will be releasing his new album Sympathypnotic Intercession on May 22nd. But we're honored to present to you now the first single for that album called: Catharticism! There's poetry at work here. From Joshua Tree, one-man-doom-magician Maliciouz crafts a hypnotic, molasses-heavy journey where crushing riffs and melancholic drone stretch time itself. The glacial doom feels less somber than earlier work but still unfolds in slow, immersive waves with a hallowed touch. Getting lost in the track allows the listener to release pent-up, excessive emotions, leading to emotional, spiritual, or intellectual relief and a balanced state. It’s raw, unpretentious doom that engulfs you completely... Easy to enter, but be warned, you might lose all your sorrows, angers and frustration. You might come out at the other end, slightly healed...

 

 

PR Wire:

Maliciouz 

Low, slow, and loud doom from the Mojave Desert
New album “SympathypnoticIntercession” out May 22nd, 2026
Genres: Funeral doom, sludge, instrumental 

After crushing 2025 with two albums “SARBERUS” and “TORTOISE”, one-man doom dealer Maliciouz returns with more oppressively heavy, psychedelic riffs on “Sympathypnotic Intercession”. A statement on grief, pain, and healing, the new album is personal and poignant.

The music of Maliciouz is described as “tectonic shifting of the earth’s crust”, “the slow, grinding decay of a planet across eons”, “almighty riffs and a dark atmosphere”, “will vibrate your skull off of your spine”,“wrapped in hypnotic, suffocating atmospheres”, “a wall of crushing weight”, “heavy as fuck”, “the riffs are gargantuan, lumbering, prehistoric behemoths”, “soaked in desert heat”, “state of the art low tempo metal”.

About the album:

What the holy blazes does Sympathypnotic mean?! A hypnotic piece of music or performance could be sympathetic if it evokes deep emotions or resonates with someone’s inner state. For example: “The hypnotic melody felt sympathetic to my grief—it lulled me into a calm where I could finally cry.” And what about the Intercession part? Inter - to place into a grave or tomb Cession - the formal giving up of rights The specific way I’m using it here is “lay down your right to heal yourself and let the music do this for you”. I fully believe in the power of heavy music to heal. My soul resonates with low, slow, and loud. Heavy music relieves heaviness. On this premise... Sympathypnotic Intercession is a collection of songs regarding life’s troubles; but with the hope of bringing relief and healing for those needing this. 

Bandcamp

Linktree

Instagram

Good Boy PR

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Artists Last Week…

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s 
Top 10 Most Listened Artists Last Week…

Naxatras
John 5
Temple Fang
Abrams
Bismut
Black Toaster
White Tundra
Goddess
Fuzzing Nation
The Only Sons

It’s Kingsday over here in the Netherlands, and we’ve just returned from a two day break at the beach with our little six year old niece. Which meant, no updates and no time to keep track of everything. And last week, well, we had our Thursday and Friday spent doing all that Friday Freebie madness for the Doom Charts! As well as heading over to Tilburg for an amazing live show by Naxatras! If they ever turn up in your neighborhood, don’t miss out! But we did do a little last week and most importantly, that FULL ALBUM PREMIERE for White Tundra! Have you listened yet? Or that Black Toaster record! Which came out in February, highly addictive stuff! All of it… So check it out… All of ‘m!