Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s
Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

Dozer
Grande Royale
The Legendary
Madrugada
Iroh
Wallace Vanborn
Fvzz Populi
Padre Cuervo
Abanamat
Emperor's Lair

Grande Royale – Grime Town

 

 

Grande Royale – Grime Town
The Sign Records – 2023
Rock, Hardrock, Garage
Rated: ****

Swedish powerhouse Grande Royale is back with their sixth album. And you can rest assured that Grime Town is once again one hell of an action packed record! In fact it’s so infectious, high energy rock ‘n roll, the promo has been on heavy and constant rotation since early February when it arrived and it got its hooks in us with opening track Tell Me. Just short of three minutes, was all Grande Royale needed to drag us along into Grime Town. And by the time second track Status Doom and third song Run Officer Run had graced our ears, we were smitten with yet another Grande Royale album. For there is no limit to the level of catchiness the boys can infuse with their garage and punky, hardrock. It’s something highly Swedish, and also typical Grande Royale. Typical Grande Royale but also very new, for the quartet now sports a line-up with a new guitar player and all four this time add vocals to almost every track you will hear. And those extra lead vocals on Run Officer Run by Helen Vilsson feel so perfect and give the album this tipping point track, for after that third track, you speed through the next two until you end up at sixth track Utopia, one of the singles, which gives you exactly thirty seconds of rest with its acoustic lead up, and then you just bop and bounce and dance along again. After which you can go berserk to Freak Parade! By the time you are moving around to Move Around Time, you might on some level start to feel that this straightforward, explosive rock ‘n roll, is just that, straightforward. But when it’s done with this level of proficiency and when it all sounds so contagious, you have to bow deep, take of your hat, throw it in the air and appreciate their brand of savage yet clean cut rock! Action rock it is, highly spirited and with only a minute level of danger… So yes, it’s safe to dance and safe to go bonkers in Grime Town!   

(Written by JK)

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Temptress - Hopeless

 

 

Temptress - Hopeless

Temptress present the dynamic video for the new single "Hopeless". Taken from the upcoming album See, to be released via Metal Assault Records on March 3rd, "Hopeless" showcases a darker side of the heavy trio's sound.

"The song creates an epic journey of hopeless scenarios. The video is set in a fantasy land telling a story of loss, rebirth and revenge." - Andi Cuba

About Temptress:

Formed in mid-2019, the three-piece found their niche and shortly after released the debut self-titled EP, Temptress. The outfit soon took their music to the stage, performing with the likes of HEAVY TEMPLE, ECSTATIC VISION, WO FAT, BLACK TUSK, ROYAL THUNDER, and many more. The pandemic saw the band turn to writing their debut full-length, with recording and production completed by the end of 2021. In June 2022, Temptress signed to Metal Assault Records.

Temptress is:

Kelsey Wilson (Guitar/Vocals)
Andi Cuba (Drums/Vocals)
Christian Wright (Bass/Vocals)



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IROH – They Ride

 

 

IROH – They Ride
Self-released – 2023
Rock, Stoner
Rated: ****

There are many bands and artists named IROH, but we are not referring to the French progressive metal project, the progressive one man project from the UK or the Russian rap guy. Nope, this is IROH from North Carolina, USA and this fourpiece will turn into the definitive IROH band for everyone that got their ear tuned to the Heavy Underground. And I’m sure when other people get a whiff of their debut record They Ride, then this IROH will also turn into the one and only IROH for the rest of the globe. As long as the world may continue to exist… For They Ride is good, it’s heavy and it’s a fun take on that Palm Desert stoner sound we all love. For with They Ride, you will get a concept record! And the concept, hold on to your butts and pray for salvation, puts you behind the steering wheel of an old Dodge Demon on the run for the Zombie hordes! The radio plays all the right tracks to keep you going full speed ahead of the monsters chasing you. The only moments where the trucking stoner sound lets up, is in fact, after every single track, when the radio broadcaster The Seed Man comes in and starts giving you the news about the outbreak and the facts he has discovered. The music snippets you also hear while you turn the dial, are from earlier projects of the bandmembers. So, you might hear for instance some Far-Less or Planet Of The Sun snippets. How cool! And so is the entire story and concept, but they still pale by the music delivered. As said before, stoner trucking, with a Palm Desert sound, incredibly catchy and with a high pop sensible take on heaviness. And within those frames, the tracks power through the landscape and underscore the story and leave an exclamation mark at the end of every track. Great vocal lines, excellent guitar work and intense drums. With final 1 and a half minute track Pedal Down, indeed putting the peddle to the metal and powering it all towards the horizon! And after The Seed Man has it’s final saying you do feel satisfied, that you survived the ordeal, listened to some wicked music. But I guess you could use some more, for the entire release lasts almost twenty seven minutes, of which you get six, three-minute songs. Satisfied, but not full-filled, hungry for more… As if you were bitten by a zombie…

(Written by JK)

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Dez Dare – Bloodbath-on-Hi

 

 

Dez Dare – Bloodbath-on-Hi

Bloodbath-on-HI is the first video and single from the forthcoming album, Perseus War by Dez Dare. Diving in hard, animated and full of riffage, the track tackles one of humanity's best pastimes: Collapsing societies. We fight with our neighbors, over farm lands we steal, pollute in the name of progress. Societies fall, we never learn and, now we live globally.

Perseus War is the third album by Australian born, UK based artist Dez Dare. Leading on from 2022's Ulysses Trash, Dez Dare presents 10 songs of dystopian indifference captured over 4 weeks in late 2022. Meant to be a companion EP to the last record, ideas spilled, riffs flowed, Perseus was born.

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Lucifer Star Machine - Psychic Vampires

 

Lucifer Star Machine - Psychic Vampires

Psychic Vampires is the third single taken from Lucifer Star Machine’s fifth studio album "Satanic Age". A melodic and energetic track featuring guest vocals by psychobilly legend Mark ”Sparky” Phillips, known for his work with Demented Are Go and The Hillbilly Moon Explosion.

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Acid King – Beyond Vision

 

 

Acid King – Beyond Vision
Blues Funeral Recordings – 2023
Stoner, Psychedelic, Metal, Doom
Rated: *****

I never was a big Acid King fan. Never was. Well… Until I saw them live somewhere in the autumn of 2005 in the (no longer in existence) sweaty and smokey Batcave of 013 in Tilburg. That was the moment my incomprehension vanished, when globes of fire started to twirl in my mind, leaving trails of color encircled by rings of smoke and I saw more, the sudden realization came, I am in the music. Completely and totally in the music! And the new album Beyond Vision, has me reliving that moment as a continued awakening. Shall we compare it to the album that was released back then and why they were on tour? That induced that epiphany, that had us seeing that wild psychedelic video show and Los Natas opening up for them? Or should we not tap into the discussion between hardcore fans of either the III album or Busse Woods? Arguably their best? Their best line-up perhaps? Or should we accept the fact that Acid King, is actually a queen and that Lori S. was and is the driving force behind everything Acid King and that comparing those albums, those line-up’s feels like throwing a glass of water into the ocean. It’s of no use and whatever you try writing about it, immediately becomes lost. It might be better to just concentrate on Beyond Vision and to try and write a few words that perhaps have a tiny bit of merit. 

The album features Jason Willer on drums who you might know from bands such as Charger, Jello Biafra and Cross Stitched Eyes. Bryce Shelton takes on bass duties and synth work, and that name will ring a bell if you listen to Hollow Mirrors, Hotblack Desiato, Nik Turner and that wild High Tone Son Of a Bitch album from 2022 Live At The Hallowed Halls. Black Cobra’s Jason Landrian shares writing and production credits, as well as delivering extra guitar. It’s a sonic trip that tries to make you envision interplanetary existence as well as the fact that linear life does not exist. Your path will swerve every which way but straight. And that is exactly how the music comes across, as an extremely dense, yet meandering path through the wasteland of existence. The moments of release, when inhibitions are elegantly stripped away and euphoria is on the brink of exploding, feels as much as those tab induced experiences, where you were an intrepid inner space wanderer, as music can possibly attain. But as we mentioned, there is light and vision, but also darker recesses that are more dangerous, thanks to that dense and doom approach. And then it all ends with the track Color Trails, if there’s ever been a song in the stoner doom genre that represents that green light, that sense of hope and belief, that there can be a better future, that the journey to the unknown destination, might be fruitful, this is it. Color Trails, sounds and is, heavily inspired by many space exploration movies and ideas, and the fact that Acid King makes it sound as big as the universe and thought provoking about human inner workings, is beyond… Beyond the stars, beyond words and Beyond Vision. Many Acid King albums have felt like a small and logical step for the King, but this is a giant leap for the Queen…

(Written by JK)

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Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

 

Stoner HiVe’s
Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

Stoned Jesus
The Machine
dEUS
Iroh
Lord Mountain
Acid King
Liquid Sound Company / Herd of Instinct
Cold Mass
Atsuko Chiba
Earthbong

We've been pretty under the weather the past two weeks. Is this the new flu? The cough still isn't gone. But on other fronts, we can sit up again and enjoy the heavy magic! The new Stoned Jesus album Father Light for instance, out soon on Season of Mist, with that stunning opening track, setting you up for their perhaps most reflective album ever. Or that new Wave Cannon album by The Machine! Majestic Mountain Records is releasing that one! And there has been so much more heavy gold released during those two weeks of illness... It's good to be able to get out of bed and enjoy all that wild and heavy stuff again!!

Lord Mountain – The Oath

 

 

Lord Mountain – The Oath
King Volume Records / Kozmik Artifactz – 2023
Doom, Metal, Traditional, Rock, Stoner
Rated: ****

Coming in second on the January 2023 Doom Charts, was Lord Mountain and their new release The Oath. An album that the Doom Charts Contributors had been spinning since early December when the promo arrived. An album not everyone might have been expecting, unless they had received word about their lone single back in 2020. Cause before that, there was only that self-titled debut EP in 2016 and then a lot of silence. That’s quite a few years. But we can sort of safely state, it was worth the wait. For the Californian four return with a golden nugget of traditional styled metal. That vintage sounding doom, with overtones of power riffs and fantasy styled lyrics, that thanks to the vocalist, will surely have you imagining those savage quests and perilous journeys you always hoped you would experience at least once. Indeed, the eight tracks on The Oath will feel like a full-on adventure, filled with enough mystique and lore to last you a lifetime. Those galloping rhythms, the flying guitar solos, those drums giving all the compositions so much breathing room and yes, that definitive vintage feeling. Cause even if there are guitar parts that will surely make you think about the eighties metal era, most of it takes you back to the seventies and what we now usually think off as proto. But whatever era you might think off as the riffs fly around your ears, the vocals will drag you away from those thoughts and will simply deliver you to the metal worshipping altar. Cause that’s what Lord Mountain does best, deliver you everything good about metal. And doom. And it will surely have you make a solemn promise to listen to more doom… And metal… And Lord Mountain!

(Written by JK)

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AJEEB – Hollowed Out

 

AJEEB – Hollowed Out

There’s always this aching in my bones for some great grunge inspired rock like we first experienced during that grunge explosion of the nineties. Well, the first single Hollowed Out by Canary Islands power trio AJEEB delivers that on all fronts! Grunge, alternative, noise, it has it all and more! Just check out the rocking video that goes along with it and get ready for their new Refractions album coming out on 29^th of March!

“It's been 5 years since they released their debut album 'Toss and Turn'. During all these years they haven't stopped at all; they were extensively touring Spain and other countries such as UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland and Cape Verde. And now they're back with a new collection of songs in which they move between the alternative rock, noise and shoegaze.”

“'Refractions' smells like alternative rock with high doses of fuzz and reverb. These 11 songs represent a true twist on our debut album 'Toss and Turn' and a new beginning after an extremely complex moment that we were going through... From the lyrics themselves to the way the songs were written, and even the simple fact of recording it completely in analogue, we had the objective to capture our purest and most direct essence. We intend to show that the changes that take place around us end up transforming us and forcing us to evolve from one way or another, depending on the perspective from which you look at it and how we interpret them. 'Refractions' is an album to be listened loud, letting yourself be carried away by the different moods you'll get into.”

“Ajeeb's new album is coming out via indie label Spinda Records, in collaboration with a bunch of other Spanish labels such as Violence In The Veins, Quebranta Records, Noizeland Records, Hey Boy Hey Girl, Bandera Records, Naife and Hombre Montaña, as well as Clever Eagle Records and The Ghost is Clear Records, both from the US. The impressive artwork is by The Braves Church, based on photographies by Sara GDM and Daniel L. Fleitas.”

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