The Countdown so far...

The Countdown so far...

Later on, after the clock strikes twelve and 2018 finally ends, we will know what the best album of 2018 is according to 79 of you lovely freaks out there who had the time and energy to send their list to us. We thank you once again, cause without you fellow freaks in the HiVe this could not be possible. It has been a wonderful year for all sorts of heavy music once again, without any question. So, in that respect it was a good year. And it seems the good stuff will keep on coming. 24 of the best albums made this year, made the Top 20 Countdown of 2018 but ofcourse you guys voted for many more great and magnificent albums. And we shall publish the Numbers 21 to a 100 in a few days. We will feature the personal lists of the HiVe team members and unfortunately, there was NO album that holds 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 before we tear up or start professing our love for this or that, let's run though the countdown and prepare for fireworks, a truckload of champagne and the knowledge of who produced the Number 1  album of 2018 according to you voters out there! Thanks everyone and let's all make sure 2019 will become the best year ever! Or at least the best year 2019 can be!

1.    …

2.    Yob – Our Raw Heart

3.    Greenleaf – Hear The Rivers

4.    Graveyard – Peace

5.    King Buffalo – Longing To Be The Mountain

6.    Earthless – Gifted By The Wind

7.    Windhand – Eternal Return

8.    Weedpecker – III

9.    Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats – Wasteland

10.    ASG – Survive Sunrise & Somali Yacht Club – The Sea

11.    Boss Keloid - Melted On The Inch

12.    Forming The Void – Rift  &  Conan – Existential Void Guardian

13.    Messa – Feast For Water

14.    All Them Witches – ATW 

15.    JIRM – Surge Ex Monumentis

16.    Castle – Deal Thy Fate

17.    1968 – Ballads Of The Godless

18.    Stoned Jesus – Pilgrims

19.    Spaceslug – Eye The Tide & Electric Citizen – Helltown & Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want

20.    Orange Goblin – The Wolf Bites Back

Number 2

Number 2

We move twenty-five points up from Bronze Medal album Hear The Rivers by Greenleaf on Number 3 to reach the album you voters voted for to reach the runner-up position on Number 2. Another band that has been making the final list for multiple years. And even reaching Number 2 before. Number 8 back in 2011 and the Silver Medal for their 2014 album. This time around they were bested by almost forty points by the album that ended up on Number One. But lets focus on the raw album that lays before us. A record that translates into sound all that angst, fear and worry the writer felt when going through an awful period. It will be choking you with emotion and harrowing visions. It will be pummeling you raw with pounding riffs and grate your soul with a bone chilling voice. And that is how the record grabs you and sits you down, it will speak to you and philosophize about it all. And all of that resounds in the music. Oppressive and suffocating on one hand and expansive and progressive on the other end. There is light at the end of the tunnel… 

The Silver Medal goes to…

Yob - Our Raw Heart

Number 3

Number 3

And now as we enter the Top 3 and see which record ends up with the Bronze Medal, we can probably guess which ones ended up on Number 2 and Number 1 as well. I am pretty sure you all know which. There was no escaping that fact. On a lot of the lists that came in the three were riding high and glorious on top. So we pass Graveyard and their Peace album on Number 4 with almost thirty points to go see about that album on position Number 3. Which is once again a band from Sweden and once again an album that has seen many editions of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown. Number 9 back in 2014, Number 14 in 2012 and Number 1 last year. This record continues where the last album left off. And thus; it gives us their very own groove and energy, it’s their bounce, it’s their stomp and you cannot help but bounce and stomp along. Chuck full of majestic riffs and amazing hooks it shows once again that these cats know what their signature sound has become. And even if you feel for a second that the album sounds like the band sounded on the last one, you realise that it is the sound which drew you in in the first place. And hey, riding that green water rapid makes everything alright! All the time!

So here is the Bronze Medal, which goes to the Number 3 position... Where we find...

Greenleaf - Hear The Rivers   

Number 4

Number 4

As we mentioned on position Number 5, where we found Longing To Be The Mountain by King Buffalo, the jumps in points get bigger and bigger now. We jump almost forty points to reach Number 4. An album, which, I must confess, I had definitely not expected this high. Ofcourse it’s good and the band has been making the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown with almost every album they released. Reaching Number 10 in 2015, Number 3 in 2012 and Number 2 in 2011. And we must admit we have loved everyone of those albums and one of them has become an all time favorite. And it wasn’t because the band had announced they were calling it quits some six months prior to this release. No, it’s simply because it seemed like the album had not been making the waves like all their others did before this one. But I’m glad to see it arrive at Number 4. Cause they are back! And with knives in their teeth! We can state that all their records are wild and wonderful, but that some of the sharp edge and danger slowly dissipated the during the course of their albums. It’s back now. On this album they sound much more chased, hunted and on the run. They sound like they have something to prove again. That there is no peace on their mind. Gritty, bluesy, grungy hard rock and with that ever-prevalent love for the seventies that these cats always displayed. Does the new drummer change the sound? No, he sounds like the perfect replacement for the old one, he continues the wildness we love and injects it with a new razor-sharp edge! Before we enter the Top 3 we have to deal with Number 4!

Graveyard – Peace

Number 5

Number 5

To reach Number 5 we do a minor jump of only six points. But after that, all the jumps become bigger and bigger to reach the final entry of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2018. So, we leave Earthless and their Black Heaven on Number 6 and move on to an atmospheric record of mountainous proportion. One that has quickly become a favorite around the globe. And we had the honor to write a short blurb for the Doom Charts about this album. Which we began with an admiration for the album title alone… “… is one of the best album titles and already offers an insight to what is to come. It's simply gorgeous in all aspects. In tune with nature the new record takes you through the wide expanse and above the big wide divide. This is sleeping the dream kind of stuff! This is introspective and stellar at the same exact moment. It is so spacious and so luscious that it feels like cream to your ears. It is a true odyssey and adventure that makes you fall in love with everything all at once. Expertly weaving hypnotic and dreamy into something that not only feels grandiose but really is gigantic. Not in a bombastic sense, but in the sense of something true and honest.  It reminds of that line from a long-lost poem: ‘all my life, my heart has sought for a thing I cannot name’. And with this album we can state: it has been found…” Here’s Number 5 !

King Buffalo – Longing To Be The Mountain

Number 6

Number 6

And then, out of the blue, Christmas has come and gone and we’re back to the grind. Slaving away at whatever it is we all do out there. But luckily there's is all this great music to give us our moments of peace and respite...  And on the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2018 where we pay homage to all those amazing album that were released this year. We jump another big twenty points to reach Number 6. Leaving Windhand and their awesome Eternal Return album on position Number 7. The album we arrive at now was recorded in the fabled Rancho De La Luna studio. It has turned their might jam-band-status into something much more concise and groovy vintage. It has turned it into a much bluesier take on everything they did and what’s even a bigger change, is that the mostly instrumental band has decided to use the vocal possibilities as well and that has resulted in the fact that we are now serenaded to for almost three quarters of the album. And it, rest assured, fits the music and it lifts the entire album up into the domain of legendary records. It’s bluesy, it’s psychedelic, it’s heavy and by God, it’s good!  So, on Number 6 we find ourselves….

Earthless – Black Heaven

Number 7

Number 7

On the second day of Christmas we move forwards towards Number 7 with a jump of almost twenty points once again. Leaving Weedpecker’s album III on Number 8 with a melancholy and woe dressed up as a hangover. But we shall return there. For sure. Just like we will keep returning to most of the albums we have already passed on this Top 20 Countdown. We thank all of you who voted once again, cause without you this thing would not be possible. We love doing this and we hope it shows. We also love the next album that we are going to visit now. The band has made the Countdown before. They reached Number 13 back in 2015 and Number 3 back in 2013. It’s a bit heavier than those albums, a bit muddier, a bit swampier, a bit grungier, but just as enchanting. They lure you in with seemingly effortless song structures and easy to ear doom; but once in their clutches they mesmerize you with melted edges of fuzz and eerie psychedelics. And there are those vocals, ethereal and it makes you see eternity… On Number 7 we find…   

Windhand – Eternal Return

Number 8

Number 8

Happy Holidays everyone! The Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2018 continues on today with Number 8. Yesterday we saw Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats and their Wasteland album ended up on Number 9 and we saw that it was good. But now we do a big jump. And most of the jumps after this one remain bigger ones. Cause it’s almost twenty points we cross to reach the following position. An album that was released in the beginning of the year. January fifth actually and it immediately grabbed everyone’s attention and imagination. They rode high on the Doom Charts and Madman Tony Maim wrote about them for the HiVe : “the four-piece group from Warsaw conjure dreamy psychedelic soundscapes and melodic fuzzed out riffs into a blissful, swirling haze.  And for once, the over used term “psychedelic” really applies here. This is a trip into a sonic landscape that made me forget the outside world and found me immersed on the journey that the crazies were taking me. Heavy when it needs to be, the riffs are natural and unforced and with great song compositions, the different tones and colors used really gel into a stunning album.” A stunning album indeed. So here’s Number 8 !

Weedpecker – III

Number 9

Number 9

The votes that came in for the two bands on Number 10 were already off the scale and therefor ASG and Somali Yacht Club ended up together on that tenth position. But as we jump six points, we move over to Number 9. Where we find a band that made the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown back in 2015 where they reached the Number 2 spot. But also in 2013 where they reached the 15th position and also in 2011 where they reached the 12th spot. This year, these vintage sounding creeps make it to the 9th. Moving ever away from that occult and spilling of blood sound of their first release, the band now travels slowly across a wasteland of copper colored psychedelic strangeness and talk of shallow breathing brainless souls that are addicted to their electronic glared devices. Manipulation is the key concept and the wild sounds will have you travelling along with them through the barren landscape of a doomed civilization. Sit up, take heed, listen to your uncle… On Number 9 we find!

Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats – Wasteland

Number 10

Number 10

Just be sure we mention everyone gets how the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown works we mention once again that it is a voted list. It has been since 2009. And no less than 79 music fiends sent in their list of favorite albums this year. And thanks to all the votes that came in for the Number 11 album, we pass Boss Keloid and their Melted On The Inch album on the eleventh position and enter the Top 10 of this Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2018. We move another eight points up now and find two bands occupying the same position. We have featured both bands on the HiVe before but not their latest works, which makes it okay for all of you out there to chase us down the street and throw dead possums at us until sunrise. Cause both albums are simply put: amazing! One band comes once again from Ukraine and the other from the USA. And both of them are heavy in their very own way. Progressive, groovy, pop sensible, aggressive; mixing stoner and metal with punky psychedelics on thirteen tracks it’s a masterpiece meant for a majestic sunrise. While the other mixes all that up with much more post-rock, shoegazing and atmospheric elements without ever leaving the heavy waters. Luscious is a word that comes to mind with both albums and so does epic… So, before we started naming even more words of praise let’s starting listening to the two albums we find on Number 10 !

Somali Yacht Club – The Sea

&
 

ASG – Survive Sunrise

Number 11

Number 11

Two albums occupied Number 12. The Existential Void Guardian by Conan and Rift by Forming The Void. Both sublime execution of what those bands are about. But we move over to Number 11 now. The final position for we enter the Top 10 of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2018. An album that sits regal like on a tiny pedestal with four more points then those albums on Number 12. And we must confess, we sort of missed this one when it came out back in April. It only hit me a few months later. But then, it hit hard and it home. All the way home… These cats show us that prog can be so intensely heavy and so intensely powerful that it moves every fiber of your being. It has some doom, it has some sludge, it has some stoner and it combines it all to something spectacularly singular. Something that would accompany the arrival of a boss… Here we have Number 11…

Boss Keloid - Melted On The Inch

Number 12

Number 12

Messa and their Feast For Water album definitely brought us some great jazzy darkness on Number 13. But we now jump ten points to reach Number 12. A position once again occupied by two bands and their two albums. Both of them soared high on the Doom Charts; but one of them bit higher than the other. And both albums will get you high as well. As master Lucas stated: “They already cemented their place in the doom / sludge hall of fame, their newly minted fifth album is like a summary or showcase of everything the band does: Pounding, bludgeoning riffs, punctuated by thunderous, ponderous rhythms and otherworldly shouted vocals. It just so happens that this album showcases those elements in the best form possible. This is a creative peak for the band, one that will seem impossible to follow-up until some new sonic element is introduced.” And Chris Latta of Indy Metal Vault stated on the Doom Charts about the other album: “It wouldn’t surprise me if it ends up being the best-known album of their career. The revamped dynamic results in the group’s most accessible songwriting and their musicianship retains the power that made Relic so enjoyable. I do wish they had squeezed To the Wolves or another similarly direct chugger in here, but that’s hardly a deal-breaker. The band is getting bigger every day and it doesn’t look like the momentum will be stopping anytime soon.” And we agree with both of them! Number 12 is occupied by…

Forming the void – Rift

&

Conan – Existential Void Guardian

Number 13

Number 13

All Them Witches and their ATW album soared high on the psychedelic blues current on Number 14. And now we move on with a mere 4 points to unlucky Number 13. Where we find an album that was massively voted for by the first lists that came in and stayed among the top albums until suddenly the votes faltered. But come hell or high water this album will mesmerize and will force you into submission. There’s so much Jazz here that the entire record becomes one fluent groove of doom, drone and stoner. It’s dark, its’s dusty and it’s deliriously sultry. In a big part thanks to the vocals that sway and weave across the tracks. So take a little walk to the edge of town and go across those tracks. Where the viaduct looms, like a bird of doom... (sorry)... There is so much determination and audacity that you soon become engulfed by this pure feast to your ears… On unlucky Number 13 we find…

Messa - Feast For Water