The Number One album of 2018

The Number One album of 2018

We are approaching the deadline for your lists for the Top 20 Countdown of 2019. That deadline is early December 13 CET… So, if you want to contribute, send them now: HERE!  But before we start the Countdown of 2019 we look back at those past 10 yearsof Stoner HiVe. Indeed, 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. And now we look back to last year… The edition of 2018 had 79 lists to tally, a first decline in sent in lists since 2009, but it still made the outcome more valid then when we started back in 2009. That list, deduced out of the lists sent in by 79 heavy music fiends,  started with Orange Goblin – The Wolf Bites Back on Number 20! It featured Greenleaf and their Hear The Rivers album on Number 3 and the amazing Our Raw Heart album by Yob on Number 2. For the entire Top 20 of 2018, visit the Countdown So Far post on Stoner HiVe… But what album ended up on the Number One position back in 2018... Well, that’s when we wrote:

“We jump almost forty points to reach the Gold Medalist of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2018 according to the 79 of you lovely freaks that sent in their lists of favorite albums this year. We thank all of those voters once again, without you this would not be possible and it would not be this much fun to do. We also thank all those bands that made the Top 20 with all of those amazing albums! But we also thank the bands that did not make it; cause there is beauty on all of them! And like every year, we will list the 21 to 100 in the next few days somewhere. So, at least a few of those albums will get a little more attention; even though they probably deserve even more. But even though it was obvious from the picture above, we still need to say a few words about the Number 1 album of 2018. Cause it came with a bang! Like a gunshot on an empty street! Like a hammer strike against the Gods… We are referring to the album released by a legendary trio. A gang of three who had not produced a full album for twenty years. The doom is vibrant, alive and more ingenious than ever. This is not doom that will drag you towards the abyss, but one that takes you up high and on an adventure. We’re going on a journey packed with riff-axes and bass-machetes. Raw, slow, delaying and discoloring sludge-riffs, carrying monotonous vocals that waft you to sleep. Thick, dirty, bass-tones deliver the perfect heartbeat for your slumber and dreams of the ideal marriage between stoner metal and doom… The Gold Medal goes to…”

And we had the honor of having Kyle aka Shasta Beast revisit the album from last year… “The 20th of April, in the year of Our Lord Iommi 2018, will forever be remembered through a danker, heavier green haze than normal. The surprise album of the decade that was Sleep's "The Sciences" dropped out of nowhere like a ten ton bong rocketed straight from the Weedian planet, and what a magnificent comeback it was. Any band taking a twenty year hiatus between albums has its work cut out for them in returning to the studio, and Sleep's mythic legacy ensured any new music would face judgement by the most die-hard, tinnitus-crippled of ears. But lo and behold, any doubt was quickly cast aside by the monolithic riffage contained within "The Sciences", a true Sleep record that slung riffs as low and slow as ever with weighted tone and nod only Cisneros and Pike can deliver. Valuable newfound energy was also provided by the more than capable drumming of Neurosis' Jason Roeder, whose deft work behind the kit complemented the trudging riffs perfectly. Barely over a year later, from the impressive weed puns and Sabbath worship of "Giza Butler" to the colossal, sludgy crush of "Antarticans Thawed", "The Sciences" still delivers a classic yet fresh Sleep experience that will no doubt wear its doomed crown of kush for years to come.”

Sleep – The Sciences

(For the rest of the Top 20 of 2018, visit the Coutdown So Far post on the blog...)