Spaceslug launch their rocket from Poland and bravely explore the outer limits of known space and beyond with fuzz boxes on full power. Jamming riffs collide with psych rock and explode with stoner/doom songs that get the head nodding while taking you on trip into your mind. These tracks, on Time Travel Dilemma, have a desert laden groove with atmospherics that make you think of psychedelic space rock. Hypnotic riffs and solos drive the songs along, aided by the sun-blissed rhythm section. Drones that swirl around song passages are used to great effect and push the tracks along rather than just being an after-thought. The guitars weave long mantras of warm fuzzed soundscapes that make you want to play over and over again. With a genuine feel for the genre, Spaceslug invite you into their world - but be warned - when the groove gets groovin' and the kraut-rocks riffs get riffing, you might not want to leave!
We know. We normally publish this on Monday. But I returned from London late and we had other pressing engagements. As we will continue to have for a while longer. But here’s another quick Top 5 of albums we listened to the most last week. The Ain-Soph Aur album by In The Company of Serpents has been on heavy rotation. The doom duo delivers in again in a fine scratchy and grimy noir vibe. Stoner fused with doom, metal, hardrock and a stylistic funnel vision; that’s what the new album Green from Mage is all about. Emperor Guillotine comes from down deep in the heart of Texas. The southern vibe perhaps is felt through its punky influences, but otherwise the self-titled is filled with doom metal and feels dark. Mutautu is the fuzzy blues we need, we want and we love! As you perhaps have read in the Quick Fire Friday section of last Friday. Orango has been with me ever since discovering the Something Good EP back around 2002 and their tiny connection to the Madrugada family tree. Well, they’re back with a new album, Mules of Nana. Heavy blues, southern vistas and wild soulful almost folky atmospheres. A pure classic!
Ever so often, when we find the chance, we fire off a Quick Fire Friday round. It’s a fast way to give a little more attention to some of those bands we love out there. And when time is scarce it might even be the best way to do some HiVe’n! So here it is once again, a small selection of amazing bands that deserve way more attention than the tiny amount of words selected here. But hey, it’s the Stoner HiVe Quick Fire Friday. And its burns hot like molten lava!
Mutautu – Basement Tapes
Now, this is exactly what we want to hear! This Finnish power-trio plays its blues exactly down, dirty and slow enough for us to immediately fall in love with. Mutautu’s three song counting Basement Tapes EP has a doom vibe and so much love for the fuzz and the heavy music of yore that we suspect them actually having transported from that golden age. There are old souls at work here. And they know the power of the great magnet!
If you are looking to get yer head right, with some groovy, punky, sixties garage and lo-fi grimy surf look no further. Nadu’s Determinator release has all of that and more. With choppy riffs and a punchy beat it all sounds exactly on point without it becoming overly anal. Dosed in a filthy layer of fuzz the seven tracks just sit exactly right! Even Chris Allison, of Lord Loud, who mastered the EP, could not mess that up! Grin! And we’ll keep grinning as long as we keep listening to Nadu!
Green Altar – Idle Worship and Ill Will Towards Man
This five-piece sludge metal outfit came out swinging with their new EP Idle Worship and Ill Will Towards Man back at the tail end of 2016. It ofcourse did not garner the attention it rightfully deserved, what with all the end of year stuff. So, here we are, with a torch, that brings Green Altar out of the shadow and into the flickering light. Sludge, doom, dark, black and ominous in every aspect. And with a vocalist that goes by the name Cannon The Green you can be sure the screeches and screams will truly make you shiver.
A couple of videos to tidy things up. The three crazy Italians of Brutofuzz have released their first single and video The Ditch. Still punky, still wild but with a touch of stoner, a lot of balls and all the pure grit you can bear. Check out The Ditch and get ready for everything that comes our way by name of the Brutofuzz!
We have not yet found the time to write a poem to Cojones professing our love. For their earlier albums as well as the new one Resonate. And this is not the time or place either. We just want to get the word out on their new video for the Origin of Fire single. Check it out!
Cross Highest Trip – Vision Without Execution Is Hallucination
Self released – 2017
Psychedelic Rock
Rated: ****
Italian psychedelic rock coming at you like a main line injection of cosmic blues straight into your brain. Swirling guitars, rambling jams, sound clips, saxophone breaks, keyboard drones and lots of heavy psych bring you an album that delights, rocks and transports you away from the humdrum realities of your dreary life for an hour. Multiple layers of instrumentation reward you with multiple listens as each new play reveals more jewels of sound filtering through. This is earphone candy. Calming passages beguile the listener before you descend into storms of fuzzed out riffs and stomping breaks. Blues, stoner and hard rock are all used to drive forward the pulsating swamp of ideas that are flying around. Hugely impressive shit from Cross Highest Trip.
I knew Goya were good but had no idea that this album would top everything they had produced before. After being welded to my earphones all week, this, Harvester of Bongloads, is already a contender for album of the year. Misery and gloom spread their atmospheric mimosa of suffering throughout the four tracks and children, the doom is strong in this one. Of course it is heavy. Of course it is full of bluesy fuzzed solos. Of course there are nods to Sabbath but ….. and this is a huge fucking but …… Goya are no copyists. Goya are forging ahead with their own sound and fully deserve to be mentioned alongside Sleep and Electric Wizard. That is how good I think this album is. In fact you should be playing this now instead of reading my drivel. Free your mind, free your body and worship at the altar of Goya. Doom is alive and well baby, fly your freak flag, light up your bong and head bang until you pass out.
Our main man Lucas wasn’t too kind on the RoadKillSoda gang when they released their sophomore album Oven Sun back in 2013. Their punky stoner stylings and grungy southern rock did not have enough for our lovely little Lucas. Well, the Rumanian guys are back, but with a completely different offering called: Space Echo & Time. Yes, they went acoustic on your ass! Recorded in one take in a mountain cabin, the album sports one track that we know from the Oven Sun record. But the rest of the ten track are either taken from the other two albums, A Fucked Up Trip Gone Bad, Yo No Hablo Ingles or brand new and they all definitely hold up in this naked environment. As does the new vocalist Mircea Petrescu. Filled with, indeed, a mountainous and shimmering atmosphere, that exhumes pure freedom, the tracks paint fine pictures and fills your heart with grungy blues and a wild lust for whisky... We can dig it!
Six-piece Iron Wizard hail from Bundaberg, Australia. Their debut album Eschatonaut is DIY to a maximum degree. Recorded, mixed and mastered by the band themselves. It sports seven metal tracks that are mostly sludge oriented, sometimes moves towards stoner and always seems to want to level the surrounding vista with growling vocals and wild guitar work. Heavy riffs and even heavier solo’s. You will definitely suspect them having quite the love for the classics as soon as those guitars start coloring the atmosphere bronze in a track like What Man Creates, Man Can Destroy. Follow up ditty Universal Tongue dispels any misgivings and starts a devastating pounding. And this is definitely what the guys do best. Crushing, almost overwhelming stampedes and whirling tones. Impressive!
As stated before, we have been involved with a few projects that have taken up most of our time. But soon a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel shall appear and we have already had some moment to listen to some great new albums. How about the Adelaide born Acid Wolf with their self-titled debut album. Heavy, meaty and everything we love from desert, stoner and fuzz infused with some doom and psychedelics. Yes, it is that good! Crushing Yellow Sun is a one man project that navigates the psychedelic sludge waters. It’s Heavy Times Redux is a combination of two earlier albums and combines the best of what CYS has to offer. Get ready for some heavy times indeed! The new Sinner Sinners record was recorded at Rancho De La Luna, and that should be enough for you to just buy it. For we all know the lines to the Great Magnet are short and direct over there. Damn good stuff once again! Greek instrumental rock force Stonila has released Chaos Legacy and has delivered an album for the summer, to lay bare chested in the shade of an olive tree and sip mastiha. Well. The new Mastodon. Emperor of Sand. It will probably not become a household favorite over here. But hey, it might require a few more spins to dig in to!
The new record Darkest Light by the Slovenian trio Jegulja has been spinning without ever stopping. Well, only to be exchanged for the new album by his former band Carnaval once every so often. For we loved Jegulja's 2014 demo output Finese In Blat and we loved everything the man did with his former band. So, it has been hard switching between Miss Universe, the new album by Carnaval and this one. But they are two highly different animals and Jegulja’s Darkest Light is definitely more on the psychedelic and jam-oriented side of stoner. There is some of that groove present we love from Carnaval, but the trio here wants to build more and seems to be more focused on tension and arcs instead of songs. Don’t get me wrong, the eight compositions on this record have their heads and their tails, but it seems to be the middle part that demands most attention. Highly accomplished drumming, fills every nook and cranny and still leaves room for the guitars to excel. Two guitars, one baritone, tuned down and one Strat riding the high muddy waves. With it, they deliver eight intense rides that beg to be enjoyed over and over. Three of them were also featured on the earlier demo and at least two tracks beg for a vocalist to do something wonderful. But that is something for a next release perhaps? For we love this instrumental heaviness! As we return once again to the beginning of the record, the only thing left to question is to try and figure out where they bought their hovercrafts?
Swamped with work that will actually pay the rent... Which will make you pay your rent. Which then turns into the next month. Which ofcourse demands once again that the rent is paid. Etc. And so on... And on...
“It wasn’t the New World that mattered… Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowing what he had discovered. It’s life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.” ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot
Indeed, that is what this music business racket seems to be all about as well. The amount of new releases hurled at us on a daily basis is staggering. Which we have stated before and can state over and over. It shows itself every month within these Doom Charts and on every one of the blogs and websites of our individual participants. Be sure to visit those to get even more information about all those wonderful albums out there. There are seventeen new releases on the February edition of the Doom Chart and every one of those, the ones that fell off and the ones still on, deserve way more attention. So get crackin! Discover your new addiction! Go listen! Be amazed, be hypnotized, be awed!
Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio and podcasters and album reviewers from the doom-stoner underground around the globe. Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom-sludge metal and stoner-psychedelic 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…
