The Number One album of 2011

The Number One album of 2011

Before we start the Countdown of 2019 we look back at those past 10 years of Stoner HiVe. We know it is now the eleventh edition of the Countdown. But we celebrate 10 years. 10 years of heavy riffs, romps and stomps! 10 years of heavy magic! That all started back in 2009 when the blog started, just so we would have a vehicle to count down the best 20 albums of 2009. The edition of 2011 had 48 lists to tally which of course made the outcome even more valid then when we started two years earlier. That list, deduced out of the lists sent in by 48 heavy music fiends,  started with DeWolff – Orchards / Lupine on Number 20. It featured Lo-Pan and their Salvador album on Number 3 and the amazing Hisingen Blues album by Graveyard on Number 2. So what album beat even that one to the Number One position back in 2011... (For the rest of the Top 20 of 2011, visit the Countdown So Far post on the blog...) We wrote:

“We have come to the absolute winner of 2011. The gold medallist so to speak. These young puppies ended up as top dog after a gigantic sprint in the end in which they overtook Graveyard, Skraeckoedlan and Lo-Pan, which occupied the first place for the first few weeks. Their sophomore album keeps in vein with all the retromania records that have been released in 2011; but this time around they use the seventies doom variation foremost and add to this a fuzzy groove that surfs over the sound waves like a mad Hawaiian sea cowboy. And even with their progressive sound structures they still remain droning and hypnotic with an ever present cosmic and psychedelic feel to it. It gives new meaning to the word heavy and uses the blues roots in a distinctive, personal and excellent way. It flows in a melodic way that is unparalleled and delivers after every build up in their own way without aiming to be explosive all the time. They know how to be subtle, they know what silence is all about and know when the fires of old must burn and burn and char and destroy. As if these guys know the old soul of the world and have been here for many a year…”

And this record, to be honest, still gets spun on a fairly regular basis. It was the album that started the infatuation with the three from Elder. Dead Roots Stirring still has something special. It might truly be one of the best ten albums of the decade. The progressive side of it offset by the psychedelic meandering brings out the best of these three. It soon become this otherworldly current that has you envisioning recurring riffs, recurring hooks that aren’t really there or are they? And after that seminal release they took the world by storm nobody seemed to be able to outmaneuver Elder. And guess what, it still is one hell of a record!

Elder – Dead Roots Stirring