The Countdown so far...

 

 

The Countdown so far...

So, here we are. Almost midnight. Almost time to announce the Number 1 album of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2021 according to 123 of you lovely freak out there. Those fellow heavy music fiends who had the time and energy to send their list to us. We thank you once again, cause without you crazies this could not be possible. And it is the whole reason Stoner HiVe every started; all the way back in 2009. It has been a crazy year. We all know so. But all of us that are lucky enough to be able to enjoy the good music, the heavy stuff and not have to strife to survive on a daily basis; will forever have a shoulder to turn to, a universe to escape into. It has been a crazy year across the globe and with this pandemic far from over; we will need that escape even more… On a daily basis… 

And luckily it is there! In numbers we cannot even fathom. Cause while the Countdown was rolling, many great albums got released every day and January will continue on that way. Amazing. Stunning. Incredible. The amount of great music being produced around the globe. We tip our hats and give a standing ovation to all those bands and artists that continue to amaze us all with the music they produce… Thank you all! From every inch of our being… And please, keep it coming! Ho ho ho! 

But before we enter 2022; before we know the Number 1 album according to you all, let’s state a few things about 2021 and list all the albums that have been featured on the Top 20 Countdown of 2021. 25 of the best albums that were produced this year, made it to the Top 20 Countdown of 2021. But the total list contains so much more! We shall publish the Numbers 21 to 100 soon enough. And soon all the personal lists of the Stoner HiVe Team members will go up. Unfortunately, no album received the The Red Lantarn this year. There was not one album that was voted for on the twentieth position of someone’s list and only once… But we shall mention a few of those bottom dwellers; cause who knows, it might just be your new favorite album! But before we tear up once again or start professing our love for this or that, let's run though the countdown one last time and prepare for fireworks, (if you're in a country where it is allowed) a truckload of champagne and the knowledge of who produced the Number 1 album of 2021 according to you voters out there! Thanks everyone and let's all make sure 2022 will become the best year ever! Or at least the best year 2022 can be! Heavy, loud and amazing! The best of wishes for each and everyone! 

1.    …

2.    King Buffalo - The Burden Of Restlessness

3.    Greenleaf - Echoes From A Mass

4.    Spelljammer - Abyssal Trip

5.    Green Lung - Black Harvest

6.    Jack Harlon & Dead Crows - The Magnetic Ridge

7.    Acid Mammoth - Caravan

8.    Jointhugger - Surrounded By Vultures
   
9.    High Desert Queen - Secrets Of The Black Moon

10.    Monolord - Your Time To Shine

11.    Heavy Temple - Lupi Amoris & Kal-El - Dark Majesty & Void Commander - River Lord

12.    Motorpsycho – Kingdom Of Oblivion

13.    Low Orbit- Crater Creator
   
14.    Lucid Sins - Cursed!
   
15.    Sunnata - Burning In Heaven, Melting On Earth
   
16.    Dvne - Etemen Ænka
       
17.    Maha Sohona - Endless Searcher

18.    Holy Death Trio - Introducing... & The Age Of Truth - Resolute
   
19.    Dunbarrow - Dunbarrow III & Thunder Horse - Chosen One

20.    Alastor - Onwards And Downwards & Snake Mountain Revival - Everything In Sight

Number 2

 

 

Number 2

Today we get to hear which album, which band will receive the Silver Medal for it’s album in 2021. The Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2021 is nearing conclusion, only two spots left. And we know Greenleaf and their Echoes From A Mass record is situated nicely on Number 3. So, who will it be? Well, we jump almost hundred points from Greenleaf on Number 3 to reach the album on Number 2. An album that fits the times so perfectly; even though it might not have been written with the state of the world in mind, it shows that these three cats can do more if not all with their music. As we already wrote back in May when we mentioned the album on the blog: “For you know, what might be missing from loads of great albums we all love so dearly in this enormous heavy rock niche we all curl up into to hide from the outside cold. Might be a sense of urgency and the ability to transcend the mundane; offering insights and feelings about what the human condition is going through. These guys have the strength and ability to make you feel that both we and they are hemmed in and torn by similar walls, frustrations and tragedies. The new album is dense enough to be compulsive, somewhat hard to hear at first, the precision and the fury that resides underneath the riffs and rhythms. Where their earlier record offered a same approach but all layered with a different sort of shade, they now show more humility and a dazed frenzy. The new album is about casualties, a search for alternatives, for something to do, something worthwhile. They emerge as masters at rendering the boredom and desperation of living comfortably in this society. Of translating the impossibility to escape the prison of prosperity. Often the sense of helplessness and impotence is not particularly pleasing; and such withering and brutal personal honesty is what now sets this band apart from most peers. The same can be said about those synapse-snapping shifts in tempo and tone or the way the bass weaves itself beneath all the different elements, lifting them up and with that emphasizing each one even more. It brings focus to every note played and every color chosen. Dense, concentrated and heavy but opening up whenever they allow the tension to slacken. The first of a set of three... Amazing artists with sublime craftmanship...” Second place, the Silver Medal of 2021 goes to the album on Number 2:

King Buffalo – The Burden Of Restlessness

 

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Number 3

 

 

 

Number 3

We’ve arrived at the Bronze Medal position. The Number 3 spot. Thanks to everyone that voted we got almost crushed to death by the heaviness of Abyssal Trip, that Spelljammer album on Number 4. But we survived and jump almost three hundred points to reach Number 3. Where we find a band that has made the third spot of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown before and a Number 14 spot, a Number 9 spot , O’ and a Number 1 spot… So, we can safely assume all your crazy heavy rock fiends out there, that vote for the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown, love everything this band does. And I reckon we could have known the album that was released in March of this year would make the Top 20 Countdown. It ended up on Number 3, thanks to all your votes. A band that got started as a side-project has been turning everybody on ever since its first release. And where the first four records could even really be seen as side-project releases; it was the fifth album that discovered a sound that they slowly wanted to churn into a maelstrom of perfection. With the drummer and vocalist that joined back then in 2014 they turned to perfect those rumbling drums, those circling riffs, that drawling voice and make it all their very own sound. Ever more propelled by a powerful groove and a thundering boogie the tracks take a life of their own. With some blues and old roots influences they have become what they possibly set out to become from the beginning… It can’t get better than this, can it? On Number 3:

Greenleaf – Echoes From A Mass

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Number 4

 

Number 4

We jump almost two hundred points today to reach Number 4. Leaving that wild Green Lung album Black Harvest back on Number 5. It’s been amazing seeing all those lists and votes come in before it all started and it quickly became a Top 7 that sort of left the others behind. But on the final days it became clear that there would be a Top 4. And judging from the amount of points and the difference between each album in the Top 4, every one of those albums is now situated in their rightful spot. On Number 4 we find an album, released very early in the year, that immediately grabbed everyone’s attention. Starting off with that almost minute long fade in of rumbling distortion the opening track immediately shows what color this deep and vast album is made off. Sludge and swamp, thundering doom, the crushing weight of heaviness. It’s one almost forty five minutes long trip into the incomprehensible depths of existence. Where every tone inhabits this perpetual dark and harrowing bottomless space… On Number 4 we find:

 

Spelljammer - Abyssal Trip

 

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Number 5

 

Number 5

Number 5 already… We’re edging closer and closer to the Top 3 and the albums that received the most votes from all you crazies out there. But first up, we do an almost and yet only thirty points jump from Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows on Number 6 to reach the Number 5 spot. Where we find an album, we sort of had expected to land on Number 2 or 1… Indeed… It’s an album that dwarfed everything else when it made the Doom Charts and it’s a follow-up to an album that did the same thing back in 2019. The growth displayed on that album, compared to the EP that came before held so much promise for the future. And that future, is here now. This album is darker, heavier, doomier and even more accomplished. There doesn’t seem to be one note, one sound or one idea out of place and that makes this album the best follow-up they could have made. It’s that vintage sound, that proto sound, that occult touch, the psychedelic meandering and those masterful riffs! It’s all there and a plenty… Get your belly filled till it bursts with the album on Number 5: 

Green Lung - Black Harvest 

 

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Number 6

 

 

Number 6

Only ten points! Once again we only need an exact ten points to jump from Acid Mammoth on Number 7 to reach the album that is featured on Number 6 today… Moving towards the opposite side of the heavy spectrum this album starts so compelling with the atmospheric, Americana bended, bluesy stroked, folky mountain guitar; one cannot help but fall in love with these modest beginnings. The fuzz, the blues, the grunge, the stoner and the doom that is present on this psychedelic rock album comes in waves and both that intro and outro serve as two devious bookends between which the album can rock out, noise out or trickle like saddened blue moonlight dripping from above… Or as Tony van Dorston stated on his amazing Fast ‘N Bulbous year end rundown: “They maintain an element of slow and low desert psych, but the menacing guns, peyote and decomposing bodies lurch now leans toward sludge metal and stoner doom, something there’s no shortage of.” No shortage indeed; and like the lodestone north is will always draw you home… On Number 6 we find:

Jack Harlon & Dead Crows - The Magnetic Ridge

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Number 7

 

 

Number 7

Yesterday, when we went crazy with Jointhugger on Number 8 we already mentioned that a bigger jump was coming up. Well, today we jump more than three hundred points to reach Number 7. A big leap indeed! But it actually sort of fits this beast! The beast made the list last year as well, it dropped on Number 18 back in 2020 and this one has picked up even more lumbering speed according to all your heavy music fiends that voted for it. For Number 7, 6 and 5 are very close together and they all looked at one point that they could even storm into the Top 3. But let’s get back to Number 7, which was released in March and trampled most albums as it stampeded into the March Doom Charts. Still that tried and tested Sabbath worshipping goodness, but with some many intense sludge moments, powerful doom trod, pounding drums, stomping riffs, that this hairy beast becomes unbearably delicious!  On Number 7 we find:

Acid Mammoth – Caravan 

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Number 8

 

 

Number 8

Once again we only jump ten points today. We danced with the High Desert Queen album Secrets Of The Black Moon on Number 9; and to reach Number 8 today we jump a mere ten points. Yes it's the small jump, as we mentioned recently, before we do another big jump to reach the next clump of albums. But today it’s Number 8 and it’s all that’s heavy from Norway! They released an almost twenty minute long one track earlier this year, which was already damn freaking good, before hitting us with two singles leading up to this massive work of doom immersion. Or as Reek of STOOM said: “these nauseous Norse crank up the volume, set the fuzz to Max and fire up a massive Earth Bong of tectonic riffs, rotting shady grottos of sound and a malevolence merely hinted at on previous EP’s. Seminal Doom!” Seminal doom indeed; so doom, it turns your sludge into the darkest treacle possible and your stoner into the densest fog imaginable! And you will not be aware that you are begin surrounded by murder of carrion birds all waiting to scavenge on your wasted little body… On Number 8 we find!  

Jointhugger - Surrounded by Vultures

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Phantom Druid - The Downward Slope

 

 

Phantom Druid - The Downward Slope
Off the Record Label - November 2021
Doom, Stoner
Rated: ****

Like doomsday clockwork, Netherlands outfit Phantom Druid has churned out yet another release of low and slow excellence with "The Downward Slope". Mastermind and formerly solo artist Tjeerd de Jong has brought ex-Asphyx drummer Bob Bagchus into the fold, and the results are some of the project's best yet. Phantom Druid's signature brand of traditional doom is on display across five epic tracks, and Tjeerd's penchant for earth-moving riffs and sinister vocal hooks is in top form.  Opener and highlight track "The Great Deceivers" creeps in to slowly build a ten-ton riff, dragging itself forward while with minimalist drumming highlights the sheer weight of the guitar. Tjeerd's vocals aren't far off from a sobered, deadly serious Ozzy, and the menacing atmosphere is amped up at the halfway point when the tune jumps into a rolling, Cathedral-style chug. A roaming solo finishes it out in style, laying down the welcome mat for epic follow-up "Remission Of Sins". This is anthemic, nodding doom that simply sounds huge, cymbals ringing out amid the gravelly riffs and a shout-along chorus that could easily close out a live show. A slow burn solo tops it off and a blasphemously crunchy chug lumbers the song across the finish line. At nearly the halfway point of the album, it's clear what the listener is in for: ear-splitting, classic doom played by a band whose passion for the genre and megalithic riffs is unmistakable. Strike a match and take the plunge into the depths of Phantom Druid's latest ode to doom, it's a trip not to be missed.

(Written by Shasta Beast)

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The Monsters – You’re Class, I’m Trash

 

 

The Monsters – You’re Class, I’m Trash
Voodoo Rhythm Records / Shattered Platter PR
Punk, Rockabilly, Noise, Garage, Thrash – 2021
Rated: ****

During this year’s Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown; we did a weekend break last weekend and we do it again today… Two posts of normal Stoner HiVe Mentions… Punkformation The Monsters was founded somewhere around 1986 in the dark outskirts of Bern, Switzerland. And under the guidance of Reverend Beat-Man the band released a steady stream of hard punk records and toured around the globe ever more steadily. Until last year of course. That’s probably the reason why we are treated to a new album even faster than usual. You’re Class, I’m Trash contains fourteen tracks and a live version that might not be saying much in lyrical content or message. Hell, the entire record only features a 120 words. Although, during the pandemic a song such as Gimme Germs might be construed as social and political criticism, but hey, all that is actually a sideshow to what we came for. We need to hear those shrill guitars, that typical thrash-punk sound of The Monsters. Well, in almost forty minutes you get everything you might wish for from this speed-boogie-garage-thrash-rockabilly-punk outfit. And more! Cause there are even some exotic influences and a genuine mini opera featuring Bosnic/Swiss composer Mario Batkovic and his harpsichord piano on final track Dead (Mortem Batkovic). Which also features a crazy sick video! Deliciously rancid and perfectly shrill!  

(Written by JK)

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Number 9

 

 

Number 9

We jump a big hundred points today from Monolord on Number 10 to reach Number 9. From now on; almost every other day we are doing a big jump in points followed by a minor jump. So, in short the album that is featured on Number 9 only has a few points less than Number 8 which we will mention tomorrow. But let’s get back to the Nine at hand… As debut albums go there aren’t that many that immediately struck a chord with all of us in the heavy underground. And I do mean all of us. For whenever this album got mentioned or played, everybody turned their heads to nod in agreement if they already knew or asked which awesome band was playing. The foursome from Austin, Texas, gives us an eight track ride through the desert landscape, with hardrock rumblings, some grunge grinding and a bit of doom heaviness. Presented as a riff-heavy deluge, almost all the rockers on this record do the heavy trucking thing, speeding and moving fast, giving you an almighty groove to nod to and the perfect amount of solo’s to pretend to play along with. The bass rattles along and the drummer briskly pounds every track to its natural high. On Number 9 we learn a few secrets and dance with… 

High Desert Queen – Secrets Of The Black Moon

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Number 10

 

 

Number 10

We are entering the Top 10 today… We jump an exact thirty points from Number 11 where we found Heave Temple, Kal-El and Void Commander to reach Number 10. A band we all love very dearly and who has been making the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown with almost every album they ever released. Reaching Number 6 in 2019. Number 2 in 2017 and Number 14 in 2014. And thanks to all your votes made it to Number 10 this year... Tom Hanno wrote about this one on the Doom Charts: “The album shows this Swedish powerhouse expanding upon their already amazing sound; their use of heavy riffs coupled with mellower, almost psychedelic sections really gives them something special. Then we add in guitar tones that most people wish they could get, some of the best percussion work on the planet, (particularly during the title track), a thunderous, massive bass guitar sound, and you get the makings of greatness!!!” Indeed, the progressive touches in their doom sound, slowly moving away from the trod, plod and nod of their earlier work makes this one shiny diamond of heavy rock! It is their time on Number 10!

Monolord – Your Time To Shine

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Number 11

 

 

Number 11

After that one point jump from Number 13 to Motorpsycho on Number 12 we now jump a hundred and forty points to find three bands occupying Number 11! Indeed, a definite huge leap in points for three definite amazing and damn fine albums! Slowly crawling up this list makes me once again appreciate all those albums you all voted for even more. The ones we already passed and the ones still to come. And I can’t even comprehend the amount that did not make the Top 20 that are so freaking amazing! But you guys and girls voted and this is how it turns out. With one album bringing evil honey from a magic mountain. The other a bass-heavy groove, detuned guitars and mind-expanding lyrics. And the third classic rock, classic stoner rock and every bit of class you can think off. Listening to the first one will have you enjoying that progressive, psychedelic doom metal goodness that flirts with the occult and dances with their stonerrock influences on the tightrope of the macabre. Listening to that second album will set you off into out space; but it is the space of doom and the doom of space. Once again, psychedelic and progressive is key here, and metal, so much metal and the key unlocks the treasure room of a dark majesty. The third album is all about everything classic, all out bluesy and wickedly stoner. They bring it all for the Sabbath, the Zeppelin, The Marshall Tucker and Grateful Dead lovers, to sort of quote our very own Bucky Brown. He knew the deal and you all did when you voted so much for these three albums… So on Number 11 we find:

Heavy Temple – Lupi Amoris

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Kal-El – Dark Majesty

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Void Commander – River Lord

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Number 12

 

 

Number 12

 

Low Orbit created not just a crater but an entire black hole on Number 13! What an album indeed! And now we jump only one point. Indeed, one mere point. To reach Number 12! Where we find a band that has made the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown multiple times. And we are glad that this one has once again found itself into the hearts and minds of all the voters. Released early April we immediately fell in love with their opening track. That driving rhythm, those propelling riffs, that melody, that theme, that refrain, all so wonderfully circling each other. And we knew the boys did it again; only to find out that most of this album was recorded for the album that came before and just did not fit back then. So, in that case we are very lucky the guys found a way to rework and release it all. Cause hottdamn, these are so intense and so good once again. We already mentioned that circling aspect, but it is so prevalent on this record and it seems to do so around every conceived theme. They often feel like giant improvisations that immediately turned into a full-fledged rock song. And then there is the meaning behind it all, the bigger picture, the larger legacy; so well described by Jasper from that great No Man’s Valley outfit and his own Weirdo Shrine blog: “The band at least spoke out, had their say. It might not be too late for us. But if it is, and some future civilization will dig out this record they will hear a perfect echo of what this age of man was about: what great powers of creation we possess, and what great powers of destruction at the same time.” The album we find on Number 12 is yet another warning and another great moment in music…

 

Motorpsycho – Kingdom of Oblivion

 

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Number 13

 

 

Number 13

After rocking out with Cursed! the Lucid Sins album that made it on Number 14, we jump almost forty points today to reach Number 13. Indeed, so far, all the albums were very close together with only a handful, ten or perhaps almost twenty points in between. Even bigger jumps are coming, but this is the first a bit bigger jump; for album that is close together with what comes tomorrow. But we are here now, and not gone yet. So let’s vaguely talk about that massive boom and that majestic groove that happens when you explode upon a surface of a planet somewhere. It’s their third album and a mighty rumbling effort. Straight from the barren wastelands of Canada comes a trio that will bore down deep into your soul with their intense, intergalactic and incredibly heavy riffs! Doom, stoner and sludge all so extremely low, groovy and gritty that it cannot come from anything but a huge cave or crater on a forlorn, dark, dangerous and twisted sphere somewhere orbiting through space… Indeed… On Number 13 we find:

Low Orbit – Crater Creator

 

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Number 14

 

 

Number 14

Sunnata melted and burned with their shamanistic doom on Number 15. We did two 'weekend break' posts; but now we continue on to Number 14. For the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2021 has to continue on for us to reach that Number One position... An album released back in May by a duo that enlists multiple other artists to help out whenever they record an album. And this follow-up to their 2014 album is as wild as ever. Seventies inspired prog, classic rock, folk influences, heavy psych, doom light and occult up the wazoo! They excel in harmonies and melodies and deliver once again a stunning hard rock masterpiece. There is so much creativity lurking here; so much proto of everything and so much warmth to whisper ancient truths to you. For the tracks are filled with poetic insights into mankind, the universe and all existence. In no way plagued by any form of restraint, the two offer more and more of all that good and heavy we adore from the golden age of rock. And now it is here again, so very well executed on… Number 14… 

Lucid Sins – Cursed !

 

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Glowing Brain - Brain Dust

 

 

Glowing Brain - Brain Dust
The Ghost Is Clear Records - December 2021
Stoner, punk, thrash, prog
Rated: ****

December is the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown month… But sometimes we do a weekend break… Like today… Because this album came out a week ago and Shasta wrote about it!  The Oakland, CA heavy scene is the gift that keeps on giving, and its latest treasure is self-described "long hair punks" Glowing Brain and their first full-length "Brain Dust". What's long hair punk, you say? Imagine Lemmy replaced his whiskey with weed but Motörhead lost none of their adrenaline, and throw in a nasty dash of prog riffage here and there and you'll have an idea. This is barn-burning, no-holds-barred, ripping rock and roll that punches you in the teeth with a good time. Opening minute-long track "Ripping Future" appropriately starts things off with a bang, doling out full throttle, thrashy stoner crunch at a million miles an hour. Shouted vocals cement the aggro vibes, and spidery solo bursts through the noise, setting the off-the-rails pace for the rest of the album. "Suffer Fools" responds in kind with a avalanche of drums, driving forward the scuzzy low end and thrashy twang, and concluding in a blinding solo just in case your head wasn't properly blown off yet. Fourth cut "Plastic World" keeps the party going while being slightly more subdued (relatively speaking), ending in a curveball of angular stop-start riffs and a simply monstrous breakdown. Highlight track "Everyone Higher Than Everyone Else" is only number five out of ten on the LP, but could easily be Glowing Brain's mission statement and crowd favorite. As anthemic as something this gnarly can be, the chorus is prime fist-pumping, pit-starting material. At the halfway point, however, the floor drops out from under the madness and the tune downshifts to a doomy pace, massive licks slowly ringing out over grumbling bass and swirling effects. A morose, epic solo brings it to a crashing end, and the catharsis is heavy and real. Glowing Brain will melt your face and start a denim-clad riot in your dingy hot-boxed basement, and you'll enjoy it, dammit.

(Written by Shasta Beast)

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Djiin – Meandering Soul

 

 

Djiin – Meandering Soul
Nasoni Records / Klonosphere – 2021
Rock, Stoner, Psych, Kraut, Prog
Rated: ****

December is the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown month… But sometimes we do a weekend break… Like today… They hail from Rennes, France and the four of them call themselves Djiin and have just released, a week or two ago, their newest album Meandering Soul. “Meandering Soul is a concept album that presents the story of a tortured mind being and his evil fiends. The listener is going through a trip where he/she will meet many characters and will be surrounded sometimes by dark and frozen landscapes, other times by a hot and mesmerizing desert, or otherwise by oppressing and sensual places. All these elements are sailing on various musical influences.” Founded in 2017 they already convinced the hell out of everyone with their 2019 record The Freak. Well, the four are back and bring forth their very own tincture of heavy rock once again, seventies prog, heavy metal, psychedelic rock and even some kraut all mixed and distilled with some eastern vibes and mysticism. Excellently displayed by the use of the harp and that numinous voice of vocalist Chloé Panhaleux. Highly soulful and yet also dark and creepy or big and lumbering. It has a lot, it has everything and still wants more. Like a Meandering Soul…

(Written by JK)

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Number 15

 

 

Number 15

Number 16 brought us to that distant planet of Dune… Dvne and their Etemen Ænka album controlled the spice there and reigned supreme. But today, for Number 15, we jump twenty points to find ourselves treated to yet another sandy, shamanistic doom metal exploit. In fact; another album hailing the God Emperor of Dune in fact. One could almost see it as a slower, less brutal sister to the Dvne album. This one more psychedelic, more transient, more hypnotic and more an album you can use whenever you want to perform some ancient ritual on a sacrificial slab. Released in February the six track release even offers up some grunge elements, fierce songwriting burning with intensity and face melting, kraut influenced, rhythm progression combined with hallowed soul shivering Gregorian style vocals. A highly unique album that definitely deserves to be on everyone’s end list; so it’s logical so many of you voted for this album. Are you ready for your trip? On Number 15...

Sunnata – Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth

 

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Number 16

 

 

Number 16

That amazing psychedelic Endless Searcher album by Maha Sohona that we found yesterday on Number 17 is now surpassed with a mere ten points by the album we find on Number 16. And what a fitting year to find this album in the Top 20 Countdown. Since something else came out baring the same name. Well, the progressive metal, post metal with guttural vocals, the doom, the sludge, it comes in waves, with furious riffs and blasting rhythms. And then there is that spiritual touch, that esoteric feeling, that divine hint, all coming at you through something which can only be classified as a ‘total experience’. Released in March the ten tracks will submerge you with their grandiose layering and gigantic gestures;  which are both brutal as beautiful. On Number 16 we find!

Dvne - Etemen Ænka   

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Number 17

 

 

Number 17

Can’t get enough of Holy Death Trio and The Age Of Truth on Number 18? Well, there’s another damn fine release lurking in wait on Number 17. We jump twenty points to reach it; one band, with one album and it’s a goody! Released in June, the Swedish trio deliver five tracks that sound like great adventures and huge searches of something they might never even know. It is the heavy rock, the desert sound that meanders through the psychedelic universe. Often languid and laidback, space is explored and these three make it all sound enormous and spacious. It floats, it hypnotizes, it feels your entire being with transcending energy. Groovy by default; they do let the fuzz and the distortion take you down from time to time; but the landing feels oh so sweet, and oh so velvety and rich… On Number 17 we find the ever searching…

Maha Sohona – Endless Searcher

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Number 18

 

 

Number 18

We climb from Number 19 to 18 today… One spot and still only a minor jump in points. For we jump from Dunbarrow and Thunder Horse on Number 19 only five points to reach Number 18 where we once again find two bands with their respective majestic albums! That’s three times in a row with two albums with the same points! If this continues, we shall have mentioned forty albums by the time we reach the Number 1 spot on January 1st. But let’s focus on the task at hand, let us introduce the first of the two albums… Released in September; a debut album, that immediately lands the Number 1 spot on the Doom Charts of that month. Sweaty, swampy, high octane rock ’n stoner that delivers retro rock just as easy as garage, metal and blues. It’s time to light up that cigar and make the fat lady sing a holy hallelujah, cause this trio is absolute killer! And guess what, the quartet that is also featured on the Number 18 position is as well! And I can’t be more resolute in professing my love for this album. And that is the simple truth! Cause the seven tracks on this album give us hardrock gasoline and metal fuel to keep us burning all through the night. There’s doom here, there’s stoner and there’s blues; all served up with a hint of nineties and an all-encompassing love for the good riff! And riffs we get! Should we mention they also occupied the Number 1 spot of the Doom Charts? Indeed they did, back in July. And now they’re here together with those other crazies… On Number 18!

Holy Death Trio – Introducing…

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The Age Of Truth – Resolute

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Number 19

 

 

Number 19

The launch was successful yesterday or well, two days ago! The Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2021 commenced without a hitch with that Number 20 spot! Alastor & Snake Mountain Revival held that spot together after we tallied all the votes that came in. And like almost every year, these positions are all very close together. And we actually jump only 8 points to reach Number 19; which also holds two albums. First up is an album that was released in May, and gives you proto doom, blues rock and classic metal on eight wild tracks. Prog and folk touches so many great vocal hooks and jazzy keys work, it’s amazing. Indeed, with their third full-sized album the five from Norway prove once again that there is still room for more legends to be born. The other album was released in March and gives us southern metal, with overtones of doom, grunge and stoner. Imploring big riffs, majestic bass work and huge stomping rhythms. But there is subtlety here as well, dynamics compositions and even some classic prog rock moments. What a beast! On Number 19 we find:

Dunbarrow – Dunbarrow III

&

Thunder Horse – Chosen One

 

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Number 20

 

 

Number 20
 

Are you still expecting everyone to turn into zombies? Like we did last year? Cause c'mon, this Covid thing could have heralded the zombie apocalypse that has been predicted by so many movies for so many years? Right? Does it feel like most of humanity is still going onwards? Or downwards? Wow, what a give away right there? Really? Was that necessary… Sorry… But hey, there’s two albums on the Number 20 position! And two we are personally very glad about that they made the final list. One is produced by a Swedish quartet that brings forth that proto sound, that doom of yore; the occult touch and the cold whisper of something ancient. Their album was released in May of this year and jumped to the fifth position of that month’s Doom Chart. Dense, dark and ominous! The other album on the other hand brings more light; even though there is definitely that rock noir touch to the psychedelic rock, stoner and more. For they use surf influences as much as something with that o' so holy desert vibe. Or how about some space? Or wave? All intense and some of it pretty spooky... These three know how to incorporate everything they have in sight… We give you Number 20 and we know it's damn good!

Alastor – Onwards and Downwards

&

Snake Mountain Revival – Everything In Sight

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