Tony Maim's Personal Top 20

Tony Maim's Personal Top 20

Madman Tony Maim has been steady delivering his maddening truth over at the HiVe. But before that he had his own outlet called The Black Insect Laughter. And back in October he re-found the right amount of time to get back at it again! Since then a steady stream of marvelous posts has graced our eyes. Just read his amazing memories about Lemmy, the Glorious Bastard. And we are honored he dedicated his Soundtrack To My Year 2015 post to the HiVe and myself… Here it is… Madman Tony Maim’s Personal Top 20 of 2015!

1. Moon Curse - Spirit Remains

Throbbing, majestic slabs of psychedelic doom.

2. Abrams - Lust, Love, Loss

A heady mix of stoner and hardcore.

3. High On Fire - Luminiferous

Leaving all comparisons of Sleep behind, Matt Pike and Co

gave us an album for of searing solos, alien mind control

and riffs that shook my fucking soul.

4. Black Rainbows - Hawkdope

Heavy, groovy, unstoppable with hints of space rock expansiveness

combine with driving Stoner song structures to make each track

sound like a classic cut on first hearing. Hints of fuzz electric blues

are scattered throughout with searing effect and yes, it does

make me want to drive faster with my arm hanging out of the window,

music blaring from the speakers on the way to some humdrum place of

work, having my soul lifted by this potential masterpiece.

5. Miles Davis - Live In Tokyo 1975

Unreleased broadcast recorded 10 days before the Agharta and

Pangaea concerts, this has a rawer sound and has Miles and the two

guitarists trying to outdo each other in a war of wah-wah pedals.

6. Acid King - Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere

This is Stoner, Fuzz-laden Doom Blues with a palpable feeling

of tripped out vibes that is rarely heard these days.

7. With The Dead - S/T

Expectations were high with this doom "supergroup".  Guess

what? It lived up to the hype - dense, raw and infused with a

feeling of suffocation. Nice.

8. KEN mode - Success

Thick, dense and brutal  - hardcore/noise rock that cut

through the fog in my mind.

9. Windhand - Grief's Internal Flower

Misery and doom has never sounded so beautiful or haunting.

10. Bersaerk - Mulm

Bersærk take the stoner template and stomp all over it with

a hardcore attitude giving you 9 tracks that start off fast and

furious and that do not stop until the end. Hailing from Denmark, this

has had the same effect on me when I first heard Kvelertak -

jumping up and down with a stupid grin on

my face.

11. Goya - Obelisk

Big hypnotic grooves give you a trip into the more psychedelic

realms of doom by riffing to an almost mantra like refrain that lodges

deep into your cortex fluids on a primal level to make your body slowly

jerk and move to the primitive and shamanistic tunes that have clearly been

spawned by unclean thoughts and in-pure impulses to damage people

with slow, fuzzed guitars and low-end tuning.

12. James Brown - Sho' Is Funky Down Here 1971

All instrumental and full of heavy fuzzed-out guitars in a jazzy

psychedelic rock style, resembling the first records by Funkadelic.

13. Dopethrone - Hochelaga

Sludge stoner doom with riffage stolen from Hell. Swamp

blues weighed down with menace and power.

14. Gorgantherron - Second Sun

Heavy, heavy metal stoner that rocks like a bastard from

start to finish with swagger and beer.

15. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Night Creeper

I have had this album on repeat and find myself drifting into the

coldness of a foggy London night as twilight descends upon you and

the dark, dank shadow shrouded streets beckon with hints of strange

pleasures or the kiss of a razor blade only to be jolted out my fevered dream

state with a fuzz filled solo and find my head is slowly nodding to the

majestic songs that are starting to feel like the best thing I have played for ages.

16. Coliseum - Anxiety's Kiss

Hardcore that takes the AmRep template and runs with it -

heavy without being brutal ...beautiful pain.

17. Witchskull - The Vast Electric Dark

These Aussie rockers have come up with a compelling and

addictive slice of heavy sounds that just gets better the more

you play it. NWOBHM rubs shoulders with Motorhead and Trouble

giving them a template from which they launch blistering salvos of

hook laden riffs and fist pumping tunes. This is rumbling Stoner/Doom

with it’s own identity – not just another band ripping off some shit from

the past and thinking that is enough.

18. Mammoth Salmon - Last Vestige Of Humanity

This is Doom that has enough venom and raspy vocals to veer

into Sludge with vicious intent. The fuzzed bass is up front in the

mix and powers the songs along as an anchor to the drums that sound

like they are being attacked with hatred.

19. The Black Wizards - Lake Of Fire

Huge sounding and massive, The Black Wizards play Classic

Rock and Stoner with authority and power. Add some Proto-

Doom and all is well. The riffs are as Sabbathy as you like without being

too obvious which of course means they fucking rock

like a mountain avalanche. Mid paced songs morph into

slow hymns of despair but the melodic and fuzzed solos stop

any signs of wrist slashing  - instead you have the uncontrollable

urge to start nodding and foot stomping.

20. The Shrine - Rare Breed

Lip smacking, fuzz stomping, amp humping,

solo shredding, MC5 riffing, crowd surfing,

bass throbbing, beer drinking, drum pounding,

drug snorting, sweat flying, fist punching,

head banging, chorus shouting, throat straining,

foot stomping, Flying V playing, ear bleeding,

rabble rousing fucking rock'n'roll.

Much love for the Madman and his crazy laughter!