Stoner HiVe: Full Contact Safari Records

Posts tonen met het label Full Contact Safari Records. Alle posts tonen

zaterdag 27 december 2025

Number 6

We mentioned it before the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2025 started and mentioned it again when we talked about Number 7. But today, we jump more than 700 points to reach Number 6! 700 points! That’s a lot! A personal favorite of mine that will surely end up in the Top 3 of my personal list. A band that also made the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2023 with their album from that year. Released through Full Contact Safari Records in October we jotted down some words about this album at the moment of release. The Melbourne, Australia three outdid themselves delivering a string with which to pull the curtain away and have all onlookers be amazing by the world being revealed. Across two vast, immersive pieces, the trio bend time, letting guitars swell like tides, synths haunt the horizon, and rhythms pulse with ancient weight. This is heavy music that breathes, meditative, cinematic, and deeply physical, moving from sparse, desolate calm to towering eruptions of post-metal force. Solemn, guiding vocals cut through the expanse, leading the listener with purpose rather than excess. Nothing here rushes or unravels; every layer is deliberate. Cosmic yet grounded, ferocious yet serene, the album feels unearthed rather than written, a landscape to inhabit, to return to… and slowly absorb… until everything around you has returned to dust…

On Number 6 we find:

KHAN - THAT FAIR AND WARLIKE FORM // RETURN TO DUST

<a href="https://khanofficial.bandcamp.com/album/that-fair-and-warlike-form-return-to-dust">That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust by Khan</a>

Khan - That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust

Khan's Creatures on the Stoner HiVe Top Countdown of 2023

dinsdag 7 oktober 2025

Khan - That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust

Khan - That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust
Full Contact Safari Records – 2025
Rock, Psych, Stoner
Rated: *****

They’re blowing up! Or already did so? Either way, seeing Khan at Sonic Whip this past year was again magical. And after hearing their new two track, 45 minute long That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust album, I can’t wait to see them again! Magic…

It’s what these Melbourne three do. Magic. There’s this moment, deep into the first track of That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust, where time starts to flow at a different speed and seems to fold in on itself. Guitars swell like the rising tide, a pulse like the heart of something ancient underneath and a haunting synth has you surfing across the edges. No longer a sound, but a presence. And you can feel your heart start to grow and this is where Khan now thrives, in the space between all the surging energies, between the fury and the stillness, the chaos and the clarity.

That moment, out of time, shows that the Melbourne three, Josh Bills (vocals, guitar, keys), Will Homan (bass), and Beau Heffernan (drums) are no longer writing songs. They are building landscapes. Inventing worlds. And each of the two over twenty minute long pieces are a journey, through a magical and vast terrain. From desolate plains of clean guitar and ambient textures, to volcanic eruptions of sludge and post-metal force of nature. Heavy is as heavy comes, but this is not just heavy, it’s deeply meditative, out of body experience music, cinematic and so otherworldly beautiful.

On opener That Fair and Warlike Form you can drift endlessly and still feel the bands resistance to go into a freak out jam. Instead they build deliberately, layering each emotion, texture and riff with purpose and intent. The vocals, clean, solemn and commanding. Guiding you like a shaman through the desert, showing you the way like a dreaming track storyteller, bringing forth understanding and acceptance.

Return to Dust follows and with equal weight it evokes all of the above, below and beyond. Cosmic and earthy, as synths shimmer and riffs collapse like crumbling stars at the end of eternity. Echoing not just the ancient or the future, but all the magic that has every been around. There’s so much gravitas surrounding this record that one might assume this record wasn’t made at all, it was unearthed, conjured into existence. And now that it is here, it has become a world unto itself, one to live in, revisit and slowly absorb. One passage at a time, for all eternity…

(Written by JK)

<a href="https://khanofficial.bandcamp.com/album/that-fair-and-warlike-form-return-to-dust">That Fair and Warlike Form // Return to Dust by Khan</a>

Khan's Creatures on the Stoner HiVe Top Countdown of 2023

zondag 17 december 2023

Number 19

The Lord Knows we love that Tidal Wave album that made the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2023 on Number 20. No less than 768 albums received votes and many of them received multiple votes. Which I guess means that all of them were loved by many. And on Number 19 we find many! No less than three albums made by four bands had the exact same amount of points; only a mere 10 points more than Tidal Wave. Psychedelic and alternative, bluesy and classic, expansive and cinematic. Three albums moving in very different directions but all heavy in their own way…

That one heavy psychedelic album felt as much as living entity as the title hinted at, atmospheric by default and with such soaring leads and floating vocals, you would surely and immediately sail away with those dynamic and laidback dirge sounds to a state of blissful being.

That other album proved to be yet another great blues and classic hardrock record from the boys that have been at it for quite some time. Slowly but decisively moving into that classic rock territory with every album they release. Soulful and retro, the album opts for more ease and slow tunes and less boogie and groove. They boys wanted everything more mellow and open, and they achieved that without any doubt.

The expansive and cinematic album is a collaboration between two bands that both deliver their absolute forte on every of the seven tracks. But these seven need to be digested in one sitting; for this is one grand spacious and wild adventure. Controlled, powerful chaos, like a perfect swirling Taoistic ritual. The two bands manage to weave an intricate and extremely detailed psychedelic tapestry that feels like you are on a majestic journey into the outer reaches of everything. Art in every sense of the word.

On Number 19 we find…

Khan – Creatures

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Graveyard – 6

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REZN & Vinnum Sabbathi – Silent Future