Ulysses – On Safari

Ulysses – On Safari

Self-released – 2019

Psych, Glam, Retro, Pop

Rated: *****

Essence. It's what every Artist seeks - that inscrutable, unique presence that defines the sound, word or flavour of all we do. British band Ulysses have tapped into that rich well, bottled the contents and shipped it out by the crate-load! On Safari boasts myriad and manifold influences, all condensed to a sweet miasma of Pop Glory. Opener "Looking For A Guru" is pure Chinnychap heaven! Groove with bite...The Sweet spring to mind immediately, as do Slade. "Doctors And Nurses" is an innuendo - soaked morsel of 10cc/XTC tease with nods, winks and hooks a-plenty. "This Useless Love" melts like the dreamchild of The Beach Boys and The Apples In Stereo... Swooning, harmonic Psych. "She" is a full-on Rocker, punkish- paced and irresistible! Melodies drop nostalgia in every direction… Familiar, as if you've always known them from ...somewhere...(I swore I heard RACEY in there!). Each track pulses with beautful, lovingly - crafted musicianship of sheer brilliance and a bang-on production. Ulysses' ability to capture the feel, sound and true Joy of the Golden Age of Pop is breathtaking, refreshing and thoroughly engaging. I'll go out on a limb here - On Safari is possibly the best Pop-Rock album in a decade. Yes people, it's THAT good.

(Written by Reek of STOOM)

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Big Business – The Beast You Are

Big Business – The Beast You Are

Joyful Noise/Gold Metal – 2019

Rock, Noise, Sludge

Rated: ****

It has been out now for a couple of months and we already mentioned it a while ago when we stated what we had listened to the most in April. But when a record feels this good for the summer heat once revisited; I reckon we should do a bit more... With members that already earned their spurs in The Melvins, Murder City Devils and Karp, their own band Big Business has been one of those twisted amalgam of styles that originate from those mentioned bands and more. We can hear psychedelic heavy metal, noise, hard rock, sludge, punk and weird other tidbits. And on The Beast You Are it is all there in superb form. It is rock. Heavy rock. Heavy, loud and cumbersome and finally Big Business has managed to make all the pieces fall into the exact right place. On earlier records the band always had the tendency to become a bit too experimental. But on The Beast You Are there is finally room for something else, something more and something that immediately feels right to the beast inside. Thanks to a more uniform sound and great production there is a crispness to the compositions that make the tracks wash over you like warm waves of heavy bliss. And even though every track is heavy and huge, there is also something subtle about it all. Showing us, very carefully that there is beauty to be found in each and every earthquake…

(Written by JK)

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Plague of Carcosa – Ocean is More Ancient Than The Mountains

Plague of Carcosa – Ocean is More Ancient Than The Mountains
Sludgelord Records – 2019
Doom, Horror, Occult Metal
Rated: *****

In the dank catacombs of Chicago, IL something is stirring... An ominous, eerie rumbling from the bowels of the earth that Men have called 'Plague Of Carcosa'. Lovecraftian and eldritch, Eric Zann and his cult of electric heathens invoke unholy rites of noise in Praise and Summoning of The Old Gods. 'Crawling Chaos' opens the ritual: Void becoming Form in waves of dark riffage, manifestly evil and gibbous, a morass of twisted sound at catatonic velocity. 'Madness at Sea' eschews ritual and plunges deep into the oceanic maw of R'lyeh: cavernous, infernal booms of sonic dread etch infernal glyphs on lightless walls, welcoming the Mariner to his demise… Plague of Carcosa open the portal to Ancient apparitions of Glory and Doom and we watch, recoiling, flinching but unable to turn away as the tentacles writhe through the rift...

(Written by Reek of STOOM)

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Sludgelord Records

Hhoogg – Earthling, Go Home!

Hhoogg – Earthling, Go Home!

Crystal Space Bricks – 2019

Rock, Instrumental, Space, Psych, Jam

Rated: ****

We’ve been working on writing something about the new Hhoogg since it came out somewhere around February. Things get in the way, it happens, we all know it does. But when you return to the Earthling, Go Home! album after these many months and are immediately blow away again, you realize you dropped the ball and should have finished the mention back then. Cause people need to hear it! Psychedelic instrumental space rock! Jam-oriented heaviness that implores touches from all the genres we love so dearly, but focuses on getting you high and getting you to another planet. Like you are sucked through a warped vortex and are travelling at the speed of sound towards a destination unknown and laughing like a mad man, even though you know that is never about the destination, but about the journey itself. And this one is majestic! What an adventure!

(Written by JK)

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Abyss – Red Moon

Abyss – Red Moon

Self-Released – 2019

Stoner, Psych, Doom

Rated: ****

Abyss, a quartet from Odesa, Ukraine have released three leviathan discs of Heavy, expansive Psychedelic Stoner rock with Doom touches and Spatial atmospheres... RED MOON is my personal favourite of the three: seven mammoth tunes (with a total playing time over two and a half hours) that seek out dissonance in the void, alien forms in the vastness and introspective reflection in the darkness... As if MIR had been visited by aliens and overpowered by the crew, who then took their ship on a jolly around the galaxy! All three Abyss releases are well-executed, seriously trippy and come with a price-tag that is bargain of the year! Lose yourself in the Abyss... The Odesa Files? More like the X-Files!

(Written by Reek of STOOM)

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Stoner HiVe’s Top 5 artists listened to last week…

 

Stoner HiVe’s

Top 5 artists listened to last week…

 

Prou!!!
Baroness
Mothercrow
Burning Gloom
Mojothunder

 

No time for a update on the how or what... Just a quick list...

Go check'm all out!

Baroness – Gold & Grey

Baroness – Gold & Grey

Abraxan Hymns – 2019

Rock, Metal, Prog Stoner

Rated: ****

Once upon a time in the magical Kingdom of Heavy, there was a band called Baroness. After some EPs, the band released the “Blue” and “Red” albums and all the subjects of the kingdom celebrated with much joy and drinks and drugs because the two albums were declared masterpieces and the band were the best in the world. All was good in the Kingdom of Heavy. Then the band released “Yellow & Green” and “Purple” and a lot of the subjects cursed the band because these new albums were not the same as “Red” and “Blue” and in the Kingdom of Heavy the subjects became sad and cursed Baroness for changing and not staying the same for years and years. So all the subjects waited to see what the new album “Gold & Grey” would sound like. And up in the Dark Tower, the brave reviewers who listen to piles and piles of shit so you don’t have to, shouted down to the waiting subjects and declared “Some of you saps will hate it, some will love it. It is like none of the albums mentioned but a glorious mixture of all of them, showcasing the song writing skills of a band secure in their own abilities, still heavy, still displaying light and shade and still awesome”

How did the subjects of Kingdom of Heavy react to this news? Who gives a shit!

(Written by Tony Maim)

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Gin Lady – Tall Sun Crooked Moon

Gin Lady – Tall Sun Crooked Moon

Kozmik Artifactz/Spinnup – 2019

Rock, Hard, Seventies, Sixties, Roots, Psych, Americana

Rated: *****

Making it all the way to the 12th spot of the May Doom Charts is Gin Lady and their new album Tall Sun Crooked Moon. On it they move every forward to the sound of yore. Their love for the good stuff, the stuff that originates from the sixties and the seventies is every present and o’ so obvious. But the level of musicianship is so extremely good that the sounds become pure shimmering gold. This perhaps the best soundtrack you will ever hear this year for a long drive towards a wide and sunny horizon. Cause it is the Roots, the Country and the Americana that make this album jump out from all the other heavy stuff we love so dearly. It has been said before, but honestly, these cats combine all the best from The Band, The Allman Brother, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Neil Young in one tight package. This is the biography of a spring full of love and sweet country living. Amazing!

(Written by JK)

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Off for a while...

Off for a while...

Remodeling the warroom...

Have been off for the past couple of days... And won't be around much the next...

Aspiring to reach the level of sophistication my colleague has reached, as you can see in the picture above...

Lo-Pan – Subtle

Lo-Pan – Subtle

Aqualamb Records – 2019

Rock, Hard, Stoner, Desert

Rated: *****

Lo-Pan has always been a definite fixture on the HiVe. They’ve made it to the Top 20 Countdown at the end of the year with almost every release the past ten years. Sasquanaut back in 2009. Salvador two years later and Colossus in 2014. They just have that unique sound that worms itself into your blood, bones and heart immediately! And guess what, they’ve done it again! Produced by James Brown (Not the Godfather of Soul obviously!) (NIN, Foo Fighters, Ghost) and mastered by Ted Jensen (Mastodon, Deftones, Alice in Chains, GNR), Subtle, Lo-Pan’s newest releases has even more catchiness and melody to it than their earlier albums. If that was even possible? It retains all of its heaviness, it has a high degree of dynamics and pushes for a mighty groove every time again. And all that with so much dirty nuance and gritty chugging, simply colossal! It’s hard rock, it’s desert rock, it’s stoner and it’s soulful! And only logical that they are on Seventh position on the Doom Charts this month… But how high on the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown at the end of they year will be up to you freaks… How high indeed?!

(Written by JK)

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Tempel – Tempel

Tempel – Tempel

Jansen Recrods / PIAS – 2019

Metal, Hardcore, Hardrock, Punk

Rated: ****

The Norwegian Tempel is the new Kvelertak-drummer vehicle and seems to continue on where the other band signs off. The melody that suddenly appears when you get used to the hardcore sound is beautiful. There are other bands once again using this name, so be aware and be ready. For the tracks are definitely along the lines one would assume a Kvelertak drummer could continue. Joined by two brothers and long time buddies they’ve produced nine tracks that use metal, hardrock, hardcore and punk to their breaking point. And once it does, the sudden beauty of the melody that appears and the wild gorgeousness that hides below all that guitar violence is simply amazing. And of course we can state that the hardcore screaming vocals fit the music, but it does mean, that some of the track fuse into one and a good record did not become great. For on those few songs they do not screech and grate, like Confusion, one can hear that Tempel has a lot to offer… So let’s bring an offer at Tempel and pray they go down that route on their next record…

(Written by JK)

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King of None – Weightless Waters

King of None – Weightless Waters

Self released – 2019

Rock, Metal, Stoner

Rated: ****

It is the third release for Finnish five-piece outfit King Of None and it’s definitely the best one to date! After hanging out on the damn fine and freaky hot Fortarock festival last weekend, which caters to all sides of metal, but only a bit to hardrock and stoner, the King Of None sound comes across as the perfect transition. The new release is called Weightless Waters and features six highly metallic stoner tracks. Wild guitar work, filled with excellent riffs and damn fine solos. A bass sound that will make everything bounce and drums which seem to pound animalistic on half of the tracks and almost machinal on the other half. Which in turn almost gives it a sludgy vibe here or there. Gritty absolutely fitting vocals complete the tracks and turns Weightless Waters into an half hour of pure unadulterated stoner metal bliss! Digging the shit out of it!

(Written by JK)

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The Doom Chart for May 2019

Doom Chart

    “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ~Thomas Merton

It’s amazing what is happening in the heavy underground scene right now. The artistic endeavor involved in all aspects of music is what makes it so immersive as a total experience both physical and mental. Yes, most of us our mental. Take a look at these album covers, most of them available in physical format on vinyl, CD, cassette, poster, patch, etc…. One of the defining elements of a complete package is the artwork to go along with the musical aspect. It’s downright amazing. This month the charts see more diversity across the planet with new albums from Poland, USA, France, Finland, Romania, and of course Sweden just to name a few. You can always count on Sweden. 18 new entries and 7 repeats keeping the trend going with over 300 different albums voted upon within our teams members’ top 25 individual lists.

As Bucky already stated: over 300 albums got voted for this month! Bands like Stone From The Sky, Beaten By Hippies and The Lucid Furs only barely missed the 25 that got featured. But there are so many more and I thank all the fellow contributors once again for all their work and all their votes. Otherwise I might have missed hearing Electric Paradox by Crow Ballard or Darkness Emotion by The Polvos CCP... Just two that were somewhere in the middle of those 300 albums... Thanks everyone, let's keep this heavy train rollinh!
 

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and album 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 Chart for May 2019

Stoner HiVe's Top 10 Most Listened To Last Month...

 Stoner HiVe's

Top 10 Most Listened To Last Month...

3 Chord Propaganda

Alice Tambourine Lover

Lucid Furs

Per Wiberg

Winter Moon

Hunt The Witch

Saint Vitus

The Sex Geckos

Maggot Heart

Seven Hundredth Unicorn

A few days late of course… Right before we get to go wild with a new Doom Chart, which has been out for a few days, here’s the May rundown of the Top 10 most listened to artists on the HiVe…