The Doom Charts for August 2024

 

DOOM CHARTS

AUGUST 2024

 

“Doom Charts is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space…“

~ Dr Brand in Interstellar (probable misheard quote)

Oh yeah, you are right! That misheard quote might have been about love. A thing that truly might be the most important thing humans have got going for them. It is one of the emotions that drives us. Drives us to create. To create art. So it boggles the mind that there is such a thing as AI Art. Or AI Music. It has nothing to do with creating. With putting into writing, drawing or music that feeling you wanted to capture, those memories you want to show, the pain, the hurt, the longing, the love. There is of course no such thing yet as Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Intelligence Art/Music. It’s algorithms and a programmed database or search engine. Combining, twisting, re-using what has been made before. No intelligent thought is present at any time. And no emotion. No love. And for now, most of the (lets keep calling it AI music for now) is still discernable and identifiable as such. But the programs will get better and it will become more difficult. As Doom Charts we have no desire to promote AI Music. And yes we know, one day, an album will slip through the cracks and get mentioned. But why, I ask, would you go through the trouble of letting a program conjure up something like that? There is no emotion present whatsoever. We can’t hear what the artists went through to create their music. To share their thoughts. Their emotions. Their love. Is there anything to gain from entering a few words into an AI Music program? Especially in our loving little Heavy Underground niche…

It's the August Doom Charts! Just in time for Bandcamp Friday...

Go peruse this list of forty amazing albums from the Heavy Underground and then scooch on over to the band's bandcamp page to buy an album or two!

I voted for a handful of bands that made the August list... And those are Jhufus, Goat Generator, Bonzai, Sidewinder, ANCIIENTS, Cobranoid, Erronaut, Emu, Valley of the Sun, Fostermother, Mammoth volume, Free Ride... (Read our reviews about Cobranoid and Erronaut on the blog...)

But could have voted for all the others as well! Gonna be listening to all forty in a row now, starting with Hertfordshire's very own Orme...

And as usual... We'll be jotting down a sentence or two about the Numbers 40 to 26 over the course of the week on the Facebook site... You know where...

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 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 August 2024 

 

Video and Single Premiere – Sonolith - To Brave the Desert of Despair

 

 

Video and Single Premiere

Sonolith - To Brave the Desert of Despair

Their new album III coming out on October 4th is another fine example of how bands grow and improve over time. Meticulously crafted and majestically delivered! And as a first single and video for that wild new Sonolith album, we are now honored to give to you the Premiere for To Brave the Desert of Despair. The single went live this morning on bandcamp, and we’ve got the video for you right here. Right now! Go watch the video, watch Sonolith do their thing and Brave the Desert of Despair together…

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FULL ALBUM PREMIERE - Forgotten King – The Seeker

 

FULL ALBUM PREMIERE

Forgotten King – The Seeker

The wait wasn’t that long… You closed your eyes, took a deep breath and there she was! The FULL ALBUM PREMIERE for that highly atmospheric, contemplative doom and shadow dappled stoner album The Seeker, by Norway’s own Forgotten King. It’s the project by Azul Josh from Kal-El and offers his insights on personal trials and tribulations, metal illness, ego and spirituality. Rife with emotion, this is the doom that might aid others in time of need as well. Out on Majestic Mountain Records tomorrow, on Friday the 6th of September we are honored to bring you the album first. Go press play and immerse yourself in its universe, cause the universe is within you…

Words from the PR Wire:

"Descending from Norway armed with the twin hammers of riff and groove, Forgotten King are the heralds of a heady, heavy trip into the cosmos. What began as the solo project of Kal-El guitarist Azul Josh morphed into a band, and the crew are poised to lay waste to the heavy underground with their brand of euphoric, crushingly weighted psychedelia, stoner, and doom.

Their debut LP “The Seeker” lands September 6 on Majestic Mountain Records, and makes good on Forgotten King’s promise of gargantuan riffs and rapturous atmospherics. The band roll through six tracks of burly, quaking doom that delivers head-nodding grooves alongside heavy doses of melancholy psychedelia, creating a moving journey crowned by Azul Josh’s soaring vocals. Hulking yet emotive, “The Seeker” is on a riff-filled quest of epic proportions."

The bands own words:

"Forgotten King is a Psychedelic Stoner Doom project from Norway which started as a solo project by Azul (Kal-El). His music tells a story about ego, mental illness, and spirituality through heavy distorted tunes and fuzzed out riffs while drawing inspiration from all that is life. The universe is us and we are the Universe.""

Click here to read more words on The Seeker 

Click here for the Lost single

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Forgotten King – The Seeker

 

 

Forgotten King – The Seeker
Majestic Mountain Records – 2024
Rock, Stoner, Doom, Metal
Rated: ****

Here we are again, professing how much we were honored for the fact that we were allowed to premiere the first single Lost back in July. And we are even more proud of the fact that tomorrow we are asked to do the same for the FULL ALBUM PREMIERE of Forgotten King’s debut album The Seeker. Out on Majestic Mountain Records on Friday the 6th, you can hear the full album a day early on Stoner HiVe! And what an album, The Seeker opens with the ruddy, high viscose and shadow dappled stoner rhythmic Deadbeat. Immediately striking a chord in the heart of every heavy rock loving fiend, for the nod is huge and the doom rides the groove like there’s no tomorrow. It's blues infatuation seems to steer this track forward and moves at a different, read minutely faster, speed than the rest of the album. For most of it is set in the more contemplative, doom and sluggish tempo. Although there’s always third track Around The Corner as well, which moves at a similar pace. The shortest song on the album, barrels down the middle of stoner highway, and seems to serve as the setup for dragging, slower doom that fills the rest of the album. The ten minute long Drag is as introspective as it is atmospheric, building that surrounding wall that seems to grow larger and larger, looming over you like a gargantuan tower about to topple. The shadow that swells to gargantuan proportions, aided by harsh vocals almost starts to swallow you whole. And somewhere in the middle of all that came before you have a track like Sun, slowly setting up this labyrinthian scene where its easy for you to let lost. Cloudy and turbid, the different parts seems to shift and change within itself, leading you ever further down the rabbit hole. Where only closing track The Watcher awaits. Open and inviting, the solemn and foggy intro is no less mysterious and as the vocals spin its tale the movement comes in, turning the track slowly towards the arc, the edge, ever more towards the edge. And then you realize it has passed like a sudden hurtling-down. And you will feel touched, art is thought, but sometimes you can feel more if you listen to it sideways and in doing so find out as much about what’s inside you...

(Written by JK)

If you can wait till tomorrow, we shall have the FULL ALBUM PREMIERE forForgotten King’s debut album The Seeker. But you can already listen to two singles right now…



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Adjustable Mustard – Your Love

 

 

Adjustable Mustard – Your Love
Self-released – 2024
Rock, Psych, Folk, Fuzz
Rated: ****

It’s all happening! After releasing their two-track single Pure Love back in March, the Adjustable Mustard duo is back with a four track EP called Your Love. Which starts, with the wonderful, sixties and sunny, Haight-Ashbury longing, blissfully groovy Pure Love (Oh). Conjuring up inner-eyelid secret fantasies about summertime in hippie paradise. Oh man, was I born in the wrong era. It’s the one song that has a third player on the track, for the keys on Pure Love (Oh) are delivered by Ryan Dishen. But everything else, all instruments are performed by Katie Pitts and Will White. Who met many moons ago, connected as fellow musicians, fell in love, got married and deliver their fuzz filled psych rock with a special kind of groove. We can’t stress enough how wonderfully good spirited and soulful these tracks are. Third one minute and thirteen seconds long acoustic track Change Gonna Come delivers acceptance and that hope that was so alive and bulbous back in the sixties when the collective energy of an entire generation seemed on the brink of changing the world forever, and it does so in a disarming and pure loving way. And with everything going on across the globe, there is no denying the fact that we need to have that once again. We hope… One day… Second track Bang Bang, bangs, sizzles, pops and mirrors the groove of opener Pure Love (Oh). Turning that guitar sound with its distorted fuzz into a Ferris wheel of determination and euphoria. Especially when that second layer takes it all to glorious heights. The key work giving the entire composition an extra kaleidoscopic touch. Of course, I will forever search what instrument might be responsible for the little clank sound at the eighteen seconds mark. Five and a half minutes long closing track Grave Blanket is the darkest and doomiest one of the Your Love EP. It colors the entre Your Love EP in a different shade, giving off the air that even though we can hope for and want that sunny pure love, people will be people and hope is easily shattered. A slow and windswept blues opening, the dragging drums, setting the scene, slightly mysterious, breathing an almost Lynchian atmosphere which languidly continues throughout the song. With just the perfect amount of key work and vocals to jostle the song along towards an equally graceful ending. With Your Love, the Adjustable Mustard duo delivers four songs that shine in modesty, and hidden in that musical humility you can hear the  pure musicianship that courses through their veins… And heart…

(Written by JK)

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Kevin und die tätowierte Vollzeitmutter - Butter bei die Fische

 

Kevin und die tätowierte Vollzeitmutter - Butter bei die Fische
Self-released - 2024
Instrumental Stoner, Sludge
Rated: ****1/2

Kevin und die tätowierte Vollzeitmutter is a two-piece heavy stoner rock outfit from Switzerland, consisting of guitarist Oliver Corrodi and drummer Janick Sidler. From the get-go they decided not to write songs and only improvise, be it live or in the studio. One take of every jam is what you get. Period. Take it or leave it. It's a no-holds barred approach that can be tricky if you're not a well-oiled machine. Pitfalls galore. But KUDTV avoid them with ease and in the process fill them up with huge slabs of concrete.

After releasing a couple of singles (all well over the 10 minute mark) and a live concert recording, they recently splashed out their first full length studio album 'Butter bei die Fische', meaning you have to finish things straight away, no holding back. A very appropriate title indeed. Because holding back isn't anywhere to be found in their book. The two heavy, ferocious tracks clock in at over 45 minutes of pure, menacing stoner rock debauchery, bordering on sludge. The catchy, rapid-fire baritone guitar riffs get repeated as long as they can and switch when they need to, with solos thrown in all over the place to make it an endless (pun intended) joy to listen to. And the drums? Well, they get pounded, hammered and tortured beyond believe. So much so, you almost start to feel sorry for the kit. But the main reason this jam extravaganza doesn't get of the rails at any point in time, is the chemistry between the musicians. They know what they're doing and move together in perfect unison - like two persons becoming one as soon as they plug in their instruments and start to play.

It makes for a captivating, entrancing listen for fans who'd like to taste something related to Undead Viking Mafia, Spiderlord or KUDTV's fellow Swiss heavy hitters Sludge, but without vocals and stretched to perfection.

(Written by Ronny Dijksterhuis)

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

 

 

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

Madrugada
Blues Pills
Adjustable Mustard
Phe
Axamenta
Kant
Stöner
Mammoth Volume
Sleepless
Cobranoid

Morning everyone! No use dwelling in the past right? We’ll deal with the bastards soon enough! Even though we shall continue to do these weekly glances into the week past. It helps us focus and pay attention to what we did and what we are about to do. Only the Erronaut, Blues Pills and Fringe Sociology posts went up. But they were all good and makes us giddy to do more this week. We hope so! Even though the new edition for the Doom Charts also needs to be cooked up. But I suspect a review or two to appear today and tomorrow… And that great interview we did with Phil Hey from Psychlona to pop up soon enough as well! Have a great week everyone and keep listening to everything heavy!

Fringe Sociology – Karma Carcass, Soul Queen

 

 Video and Single debut, Premiere

Fringe Sociology – Karma Carcass, Soul Queen

Are you always searching? You looking for something out there? Something off center? Weird? Crazy? Not easily explained? Look no further and head off on a little jaunt with Fringe Sociology! It’s their debut single Karma Carcass, Soul Queen and we are completely honored to Premiere this wicked little ditty for you all. The main cats behind all this scheming is Lars Carlberg from Grandier and Bokor and drummer Hampus Landin. And together they produce some bizarre yet utterly tantalizing ruckus. Metal, with sludge, doom, thrash and industrial. Something tribalistic at work and sounds that carry with it some ancient secret knowledge, Fringe Sociology has discovered something... And will howl it in  your ear...

“It's really just an excuse for hanging out and having a few beers. But we've recorded and mixed most of an album ranging from some kind of sludge to Pink Floyidish crap. We shot an awesome/terrible video of one song that we think actually kicks ass.”

“The band is me and Hampus Landin at the moment. We've been hanging out in our studio now and then, having a few beers and writing, rewriting, rerecording, remixing stuff since... early 2022? I do the guitars, bass and vocals and Hampus does drums and other assorted stuff. He's also very involved in artwork and production. We've been nagging people to do some guest stuff, like fancy guitar solos and shit, but nobody seems to want anything to do with us, hahaha! (Except for an old friend laying down some amazing keyboard stuff on one song)."

"I started Fringe Sociology as some kind of placeholder dump for trying out stuff, back in 2018. Music but also some writing, photography and other creative stupid hobbies. Part of the fun is learning how to produce shit from scratch all the way to the finished release, never done the whole lot ourselves before. We've got the luxury of being part of a small music association that runs a studio, making it possible. Lately we've been thinking about doing some Fringe Sociology live, yeah, but we're being sidetracked all the time. Like with this video that started out with Hampus having that ugly pig mask, and then we got an old friend to act out his secret loathing for everything and everybody. And I got to learn more about how to cut video and mess shit up with filters and bad light and stuff. Betrayer-Kreator-feeling, haha. We're "unsigned" as of now, whatever that means these days? We've got an album kinda finished, just two more songs to go. And half of an EP. There's always one or two more songs to go. Someway or other we'll get our shit together and release more stuff, probably the album, during 2024. It's done when it's done, as they say...”

Video sponsored by NorseNomad brewery, starring master brewer Håkan in a pig mask. No other people or animals were hurt or involved in this production.

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Blues Pills – Birthday

 

 

Blues Pills – Birthday
Throwdown Entertainment – 2024
Rock
Rated: ***

It’s their fourth album and yet another one that might propel them ever forward to a bigger audience. Blues Pills has evolved from that gritty seventies inspired, bluesy, hard rocking outfit that was as classy as it was soulful. But the Swedish four are rounded out, more pop sensible and now able to rock every stage, stadium and festival. They can play everywhere and get every crowd moving! The new one is called Birthday, in part named that way because vocalist Elin Larsson found out she was pregnant during the writing and recording sessions. Has it brought an extra heartbeat full of glee and smiles to the record? It does sound like it, cause it is forever sunnier and even more danceable. Even though we do get to hear her grit her teeth and sing she’s ‘going to ruin someone’s birthday’, ‘how it drives me fucking mad’ and that she will continue to make bad choices. But it all feels aimed to get the entire festival field a moving. The first ballad they roll out is called Top Of The Sky and is a beautifully arranged composition that leaves every second open for Larsson to shine and show off her vocal capabilities. Vocal chords that seem to have gotten even better and more versatile. And it seems the gang knows their strength, cause much of the compositional choices are made in such a way that the vocals are always front and center. All of which leaves little to no room to miss the old Blues Pills you fell in love with. And this is still the Blues Pills you want to grow old with…

(Written by JK)

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Nuclear Blast

Erronaut – The Space In Between

 

 

Erronaut – The Space In Between
London Doom Collective – 2024
Rock, Stoner, Grunge, Desert
Rated:

The four piece sonic astronauts of the band Erronaut hail from the United Kingdom, offering an elaborate, expansive, and stunning album with their debut ‘The Space Inbetween’. Filled with that fuzzy stoner sound we all love, cool clean vocals, and melodic hooks both musically and lyrically, the band have weaved together a sound of tranquility that can simultaneously blast you up through the atmosphere.

Erronaut navigates you through a voyage of distorted guitars that spew forth a never-ending fuzz that envelopes the entirety of ‘The Space Inbetween’, but it’s one you’ll never tire from, in fact you’ll embrace. The vocalist has a great tone and voice, almost pushing them to the edge with some throaty rasp to accentuate the heaviness of the choruses, bringing focus to his range as a singer. Passionate, relatable lyrics of introspection, self-reflection, and personal growth engage the listener. There’s an intensity to the drums, every time he hits the skins, you’re well aware of it as the sounds vibrate through your stereo speakers. It’s also an extremely bass-heavy album, purposely dominating at times, with plenty of instances where the instrument takes center stage.

I thought about spoiling it, but I decided not to, I’ll just say the coordinates at the beginning of the album 5.68* N 98.54* E are of importance and what a neat little Easter Egg from the band. Songs like ‘Way Down Below’ and ‘Lost Cause’ are completely unforgettable, fuzzed out tunes with standout bass that are full of melody and spatial expeditions. ‘Dark Horizon’ and particularly ‘Per Contra’ display Erronaut’s grunge influence with melancholy lyrics and tones but with a positive, upbeat tempo and prevailing conclusions. ‘1202’ and ‘Underneath the Sun’ have the stoner rock touch but truly they’re high-quality rock songs with solid arrangements and hooks at the centers. After many listens the two-parter ‘Beyond Sleep Pt. 1&2’ are my favorite tracks, ethereal spacey sounds that create a cascading almost freefalling experience through the heavens with auditory bliss. You won’t want to miss out on this, the journey, the experience, The Space Inbetween.

(Written by Jon McGough)

Listen to the first single Lost Cause now and get ready to adventure through The Space Inbetween as of Friday August 30th!



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

 

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

Castle
Mirror Queen
Slomosa
Ridge
Warpriest
Sweet
Night Verses
Sharif Dumani
Shun
Sidewinder

Monday Monday! A week full of promise... Right? After very annoying stuff early in the week, that I still need to figure out how to deal with properly, I only had Thursday to really do some work. Rent paying work and for Stoner HiVe. Felt happy about the amount of work I got done that day, saw that the cool Ronny sent in a review for the ТЯГА album, and thought, let’s save the Castle piece for Friday and put Ronny's work up immediately. Around midday on Friday I wanted to send the rent paying stuff in to the editors and put Castle online. WTF! Nothing got saved and no old versions of the pieces were anywhere to be found. Man, was I steaming… Decided, just in time, to head for the forest instead of throwing the computer out the window… So, that’s why we did very little last week and I am uncertain about the amount this week. Cause it’s a hectic one for all the annoying stuff… But we shall try to do something… Enjoy yer week and go check out the bands above, they all rock hard!

Mammoth Volume – Lisa

 

Mammoth Volume – Lisa

Out… Today! The new Mammoth Volume album Raised Up By Witches. Released through Blues Funeral Recordings, the album sports nine progressive rock songs, that harken back to the sixties and seventies and all of it stoner and heavy toned. Well, except for Sången Om Ymer perhaps and Lisa… And guess what, they’ve just released a video for the most off center track on the album, Lisa. Crazy Lisa…

PR Wire:

Sweden's jazzy and progressive stoner torchbearers MAMMOTH VOLUME release their new album "Raised Up By Witches" on Blues Funeral Recordings and present a new video for the song "Lisa" today.

Mammoth Volume return with a new album that harnesses their absolute fluency with the somehow compatible genres of 70s progressive rock and modern stoner riffage. The result is an absorbing trek through head-nodding grooves, wispy instrumentation and quirky brilliance that's riveting. Mammoth Volume has made it their brand to go unexpected places and take constant delightful turns pretty much every time we think we've got them pegged, and "Raised Up By Witches" is a seamless and exhilarating new trip where they're basically the only vehicle on the road.

About the "Lisa" visualizer, the band says: "Truth be told, the music for ”Lisa” was written instrumentally. If memory serves, the working title was something like ”¾ swing” – descriptive but not very poetic or narrative. When it came time to record the song we obviously had to come up with some lyrics. About three-quarters of the lyrics was prepared, but we still had to fill out the rest as we were recording the vocals in the studio. That’s when we (spoiler warning!) thought to rhyme ”way” with ”gay”. We double-checked to make sure the lyrics couldn’t be conceived as homophobic, then we celebrated: an actually decent song lyric, with a twist at the end! Then (and only then) it occurred to us that there is a 60’s film called ”David and Lisa” that deals with some of the themes in the song: mental illness, tragic romance, and most notably a girl named LISA! Lucky for us that movie was in the public domain. In an inspired rush of creativity, a screenplay was written to match scenes in the movie with the lyrics of the song. BOOM! One of our better moments is born. They matched up pretty well if we may say so ourselves. Shit happens."

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ТЯГА - ТЯГА

 

 

ТЯГА - ТЯГА
Self-released - 2024
Stoner, Doom, Grunge, Gothic
Rated: ****

ТЯГА hail from Yekaterinburg, a Russian city just east of the Ural mountains. With its long and cold winters, it's not the first place you associate with the blistering heat of some tasty groove-driven music. Yet, that's exactly what they produce on their self-titled debut album. You need something to keep you warm, right? And warm it will keep you, even though the core is a fairly standard mix of doom and stoner with an occasional nod to grunge, like for example the feel and chord progression in the brooding '404'. What sets them apart from the pack is the overall atmosphere: the haunting melodies, the impeccable execution and (especially) singer Jackie.

When you isolate her clear voice (with an at times slightly ragged edge) from the rest, it immediately becomes clear how seemingly effortless she transitions from the lower to the higher registers and back. She could make every generic alternative pop song sound cool and would also fit nicely in a gothic metal band. And although normally these kind of vocals wouldn't be the best fit for a band like ТЯГА, it works like a charm here, mainly because they made the bold decision to sing in their native Russian language. It's somewhat rougher sounding than English and that seems to be the missing piece to the puzzle. Heck, it even becomes mesmerizing - these angelic vocals that sometimes seem to battle the heavy, distorted, low-end rumble, while at other times they end up in a symbiotic marriage. Great examples of that duality can be found throughout the whole album but are most present in the final two songs 'Утроба' and 'Оазис'. Like ТЯГА are taking the audience on a sonic road trip where they slowly introduce them to their unique sound while gradually dragging their travel companions deeper and deeper into the experience to finally leave a lasting impression. It's a perfect example of how craftsmanship, confidence and determination can make a potentially run of the mill album a great one.

(Written by Ronny Dijksterhuis)

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