Posts Tagged ‘Doom’

MOTHS – Septem

Posted: 1 August 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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1st August 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The other day, while riffling through my record collection, I found a few LPs and 12” I had quite forgotten owning, including a promo copy of ‘Chance’ by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. Stapled to the plain black die-cut cover of this white-label record with the title hand-written in biro, is a press release which simply reads ‘I know this is what you’ve all been waiting for….. Yep. The new Red Lorry Yellow Lorry single It’s called “Chance” and as usual it’s on Red Rhino Records. It’s very good’ and is signed ‘Yours condescendingly’.

You just don’t get press releases like that any more – especially not typed in all block caps and photocopied.

I appreciate the effort that goes into a good press release, and a solid band bio, because it does help me as a reviewer get a sense of context, of what a band’s about, what an album’s about. But the counterpoint to that is that there’s so much detail being spoon-fed, there’s less room for creative interpretation. The fact of the music industry has changed radically since the 80s and 90s, the days of the weekly inkies, the time before the Internet.

There simply was no way of ‘doing research’. And writers had tight deadlines. And so they just riffed to fill the column inches. Facts were hazy, critiques were often based on first impressions and knocked out in an hour after an extended liquid lunch. Names, dates, titles weren’t always accurate. And fans scoffed at the errors – and still do when clippings are posted online – but that was the nature of the beast.

Now, misspell the name of the bassist or give the wrong year for their debut EP, or somesuch and PRs, labels, and bands are onto you straight away asking for corrections. In a competitive market – I often report that on average, I receive around fifty submissions a day – simply getting coverage is a massive feat. This is certainly not to say that those times past were better – simply different, and I simply navigate my way to this release via this route to demonstrate the ways in which things have changed in the years since I started out writing about music in the 90s. It’s also altogether rarer now to find negative reviews, and while a part of this is due to the overwhelming amount of music being released meaning that reviewers are generally more inclined to spend what time they have promoting music they like, there’s also a certain element of fear of there being a social media pile-on, or having their supply of gratis music cut off. But artists and their labels and PR really need to accept that they’re not going to please all the people all the time, and sometimes, it’s necessary to call out an act with dodgy politics or whatever, or to simply call a turd a turd.

Anyway. Before I’ve even hit play, I’ve learned that this release by MOTHS is ‘a visceral journey through the Seven Deadly Sins, with each track embodying a facet of indulgence, obsession, and self-destruction — from the corrosive jealousy of “Envy” to the insatiable hunger of “Gluttony” and the rage of “Wrath”. The album plunges listeners into a dark, immersive experience where desire spirals into chaos’, and that ‘Diving deeper into heavier territory, MOTHS fuse elements of death and black metal with their signature blend of progressive, psychedelic, doom, and stoner metal, crafting a sound that’s both aggressive and atmospheric. With every step forward, MOTHS continues to explore new sounds and challenge genre boundaries, proving that music has no limits when driven by passion and innovation.’

I feel as if my work is already done. I can pour myself a large vodka and kick back, right? Well, I could. But that’s not my style. At least not the kicking back part. Large vodka in hand, I brace myself for the sonic onslaught… to be faced with some tinkering banjo or acoustic guitar giving country licks that are pure blues / Americana. And it gets jazzier and groovier as it goes on. What the fuck is this?

‘Sloth’ slides into ‘Envy’, a slippery, sultry alt-rock cut where the vocals are bathed in reverb, and the lo-fi production belies the fact that this is a vaguely jazzed-up take on grungy emo, at times coming on like Paramore recorded on a 90s cassette four-track. The haziness of the recording is actually something of a positive, but these are songs which require a slicker, fuller production. As a consequence, these takes sound more like demos than final versions.

The murky rawness works better on ‘Greed’, which brings rabid, raw-throated, growling black metal elements to the vaguely gothic metal compositions. It segues into ‘Pride’ which goes full-throttle skin-peeling abrasion before suddenly going commercial rock with fancy licks at the midpoint. I like ZZ Top, as it happens. I just wasn’t expecting a riff from Eliminator here.

‘Pride’ does take things full heavy, a prime slice of sludgy doom, and ‘Lust’ is, without question, a slugging slab of doominess, with some fancy fretwork thrown in on top. There’s certainly a lot going on here, and most of it works. MOTHS certainly bring some megalithic riffs and a lot of fire to an album that may be unpredictable in places, but is, overall, solid and with no shortfall of gutsy, guitar-driven heft.

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Froglord / Kraken Waker / Chefs Kiss – The Fulford Arms, York, 21st May 2025

Posted: 22 May 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

It’s encouraging to arrive twenty minutes before the first band are due on, and, despite it being a pleasant, sunny spring evening in the middle of the week, it’s already busy inside the venue, and not just at the bar. There’s a tangible buzz.

The arrival of the first act, Chefs Kiss, who describe themselves as a ‘comedic food themed slam metal band’, brings a fair few forward, and it’s clear that they’ve brought their mates with them. There was a time when I may have viewed this in a rather sneery way, but what matters, I realise these days, is that if they’ve got people in through the door, then it’s all to the good.

With a wardrobe which included kilts and masks and aprons and chef hats, Chefs Kiss weren’t all that comedic – or at least that funny – a comedy act, nor especially musically accomplished either. Does the world need a joke thrash act? Actually, it probably does, and fair play to them, in that they didn’t take themselves seriously, and largely adhered to their rather daft concept, and were good fun, bringing out a life-size cardboard cut-out of Ainsley Harriot which was passed around the venue above the heads of the audience like some sort of crowd surfing cardboard deity. What’s more, they looked we enjoying themselves, and every young band has to start somewhere. This is once again why we need venues like this.

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Chefs Kiss

Just as Chefs Kiss were a shade shambolic, so Kraken Waker were finely honed performers, clearly with not only hours of rehearsals behind them, but also a lot of gig experience. They seriously were incredibly tight. Their sound is very much classic US rock at the heavier end of the spectrum, with a strong, dirty, stoner leaning. I had afforded myself a chuckle while they checked their mic levels: the three beardy longhairs all came on with affectations as if they were from Texas. But piling into their set, they were instantly impressive, and it soon became apparent that they were unapologetic Geordies, with strong songs about being drunk, smoking weed, and wanting all the billionaires to fuck off to Mars. Quite possibly the band of the night.

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Kraken Waker

If you’re going to pursue a concept – particularly one that’s ridiculous – you really have to go all-in to pull it off. Oh, and Froglord do. The Bristol band’s five – yes, five – albums to date, including the most recent, Metamorphosis, released just a couple of weeks ago, are all preoccupied with expanding the lore of The Frog Lord, centred around the Book of the Amphibian, with swamp rituals and The Wizard Gonk and the like. Behind all this stupidity, there are some fierce riffs, and a fantastically solid doom metal band. I would have been perfectly happy if they turned up in jeans and T-shirts and blasted out the raging riffs. I might even have found it easier to connect with. But this is about performance, theatre. It’s also about doing something different. There is certainly no shortage of serious doom bands. There are considerably fewer doom bands who have devoted their entire careers to a concept as absurd as this.

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Froglord

The more preposterous the concept, the more committed you have to be, and Froglord prove that they’re one hundred per cent committed (or that they perhaps ought to be), with a stage set which has all the props, from a stage backdrop to a lectern on which stands a copy of some esoteric bible, via masks, cloaks, and a giant plastic frog. The set is structured around a swamp ceremony, and there’s no breaking character – apart from when plugging merch, which is done in character while acknowledging it’s a break in character, which offers some postmodern reflexivity, and in the way front man Benjamin ‘Froglord’ Oak will adopt the stance of a high priest before getting down and grooving to the monster riffs, cloak flapping, mask slipping. It’s funny because they clearly know it’s daft but play it with straight faces. That kind of dedication is impressive – as is their shit-your-pants bass sound.

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Froglord

And perhaps this is why it works. There’s a knowingness in the delivery of the performance, but they’re feigning that they don’t know we know it. Or something. And musically, they’re really strong. By the end, there are people traversing the venue, just grazing beneath the room’s low ceiling, in the same fashion as the cardboard Ainsley at the start of the night, and we filter out into the night to a chirping chorus of frogs. No two ways about it, Froglord put on a show.

Cwfen – Sorrows

Posted: 20 May 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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New Heavy Sounds – 30th May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

One of the strongest cases in favour of attending shows at local grassroots venues is that a punt may reward by striking pure gold with the discovery of a band that absolutely blows you away. It may be rare, but when it happens… POW! And so it was that a few months ago, I witnessed Glasgow’s Cwfen’s first live performance south of the border in the middle of the lineup for a £6 midweek gig at my local 150-capacity venue. Even before I learned that they were signed to New Heavy Sounds – a label which consistently delivers on the promise of its name, in finding bands which are heavy, but offer something new, something different, and have homed so many outstanding acts through the years – and had some much bigger shows lined up, it was clear that this was a band of rare talent, and who wouldn’t be playing 150-capacity venues for long. On stage, they had that quality that you only know when you see it. And they had songs.

And here they are, recorded in the studio, on their debut album, Sorrows. The huge, riff-driven epics are interspersed with brief incidental instrumental pieces, appropriately entitled ‘Fragment’ and numbered sequentially. The first provides a soft intro before ‘Bodies’ blasts in with seven minutes of supreme chuggage. It’s a gritty hard rock behemoth, but it’s more than just another monolithic riff monster: there’s a shade of goth sensibility about it, not least of all in Agnes’ brooding vocal, but there’s also the brittle-edged lead guitar work, and the song brings a powerful sense of drama and theatricality, building to a rabid, demonic climax… and straight away, it’s apparent that this is something special.

Cwfen have a supreme grasp of dynamics, of mood, of atmosphere, and Sorrows has all of these in spades. Single cut ‘Wolfsbane’ grinds in, meshing together gothy lead guitar, rich with chorus, and reverb-laden vocals which are simultaneously haunting and commanding, while a thunderous bass nails things down tight at the bottom end. Next up is ‘Reliks’, released as their debut single, and it’s different again, an atmospheric mid-tempo song which soars, managing to incorporate elements of classic 80s rock and shoegaze, while at the same time bringing the atmosphere of Fields of the Nephilim. Nothing’s overdone, and nothing’s underdone, either: everything fuses together in perfect balance, while ‘Whispers’ melds 70s rock vibes with a hard rock, delivered with a hint of anthemic power ballad. And in the background, raw banshee screams fill the swell of sound towards the end with pure emotional release. ‘Penance’ brings the weight with thunderous drums, squalling feedback, and a crushing riff behind a demonic howl of a vocal, which switches to achingly magnificent melody for the chorus. ‘Embers’, meanwhile, makes for a megalithic monster of a tune, delivering seven minutes of crushing riffery and standing as the heaviest and maybe one of the most overtly ‘metal’ song in the album – although full-force closer ‘Rite’ plunges deeper into darkness, a blackened anthem by way of a finale to a superlative set.

On Sorrows, Cwfen deliver on their name: magical, mystical, menacing, haunting, dark… but they bring so much more, and certainly do not belong in any given pigeonhole. While this is indisputably a ‘heavy’ album, it’s accessible – without going pop or being overly polished. It’s an album which makes a high-impact first impression, but reveals more depths and layers with subsequent listens. Sorrows is a masterful work, which ventures far and wide in its musical inspirations and touchstones, meaning it’s never samey, never predictable, but at the same time, Cwfen demonstrate an intense focus, forging a sound which is distinctive, rather than derivative. A rare gem, and a standout of 2025 so far.

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Watch: ‘Rivers of Death’ by King Potenaz

Posted: 15 May 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Southern Italy’s riff-wielding power trio King Potenaz have officially signed to Majestic Mountain Records for the release of their highly anticipated sophomore album Arcane Desert Rituals Vol. 1, due out June 27th, 2025 on both vinyl and digital formats.

To mark the occasion, the band has just unleashed their blistering new single and video for ‘Rivers of Death’, a 10-minute descent into fuzzy doom, psychedelic dread, and scorched-earth riff worship.

“We’re back with a vengeance, unleashing our long-awaited second album, Arcane Desert Rituals Vol. 1! Says the band. "This is our heaviest, most intense work yet — a sonic onslaught that’ll blow your mind. We can’t wait for you to crank it up and dive into the chaos!”

With a sound steeped in the grimy tradition of Electric Wizard, Sleep, and Monster Magnet, King Potenaz blend occult doom, stoner fuzz, and eerie psychedelia into a swirling ritual of sound. “Rivers of Death” is the perfect first taste of what’s to come: hypnotic, devastating, and weird in all the right ways.

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Beige Palace / Lo Egin – Beige Palace / Lo Egin

Posted: 14 May 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Cruel Nature Records – 30th May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

First things first: Beige Palace were ace, and their departure has left a gap in the musical world, especially in Leeds. In a comparatively short timespan, the trio produced a respectably body of work, evolving from their minimal lo-fi beginnings to explore musical territories far and wide, and this final release, split with another Leeds act, Lo Elgin, who, in contrast, have released precious little.

The accompanying notes provide valuable context for the final recordings laid down by Beige Palace, recorded at Wharf Chambers, one of Leeds’ finest DIY venues by Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe (guitar/keys/vocals)… and now helming the mighty Thank.

Taking a step back from the discordant post hardcore of ‘Making Sounds For Andy’ and the freewheeling experimentation of ‘Leg’, Beige Palace’s side largely favours the repetition and extreme dynamic shifts found on their 2016 EP ‘Gravel Time’. The production here also returns to the lo-fi, DIY approach from that EP, eschewing the more polished sound of their two full-length albums. Through returning to their roots, Beige Palace manages to drag their sound to new extremes, with these three tracks bringing to mind artists as disparate as US Maple and Sunn O))).

‘Wellness Retreat’ is dense and discordant, low-end synth drone and bass coalescing to a eardrum-quivering thrum over which scratchy guitars and vocals come in from all sides to forge a magnificently disjointed and angular two minutes and twenty seconds. Too chaotic to really be math-rock, it’s a squirming can of worms, a melting pot where Shellac meets Captain Beefhart at a crossroads with Trumans Water. Or something.

Bringing hints of Silver Jews, the lo-fi crawler ‘Good Shit Fizzy Orange’ does math-rock but with an experimental jazz element, the sparse picked guitar and slow-rolling cymbal work juxtaposed with what sounds like the strumming of an egg slicer before sad strings start to weave their way over it all. The lyrics are, frivolous and stupid, and we wouldn’t want things any other way. Because much as one may value well-crafted, poetical lyrics, sometimes dumb, trashy, meaningless words work just fine. Better than fine, even.

There’s a hint of later Earth about the spartan folksiness of ‘Update Hello Blue Bag Black Bag’ – a song which sounds serious but as the title suggests, isn’t quite so much, but around the midpoint, all the pedals are slammed into overdrive and suddenly there’s a tidal wave of distortion, a speaker-busting cascade of heavy doom-laden drone. And as it tapers to fade, while we mourn the departure of a truly great band, we get to rejoice that during the span of their career, Beige Palace did everything. It’s a solid legacy they’re leaving, and one which may well expand in the years to come. There will be people in five, ten, fifteen years asking ‘remember Beige Palace?’, and other people will be replying ‘Yes! I saw them at CHUNK!’. Well, I will be, anyway. And we still have Thank to be thankful for.

The two pieces which represent Lo Elgin’s contribution mark a sharp contrast to those of Beige Palace. The first, the eleven-minute monster that is ‘Beneath the Clock’, is a thunderous blast of doom-laden rage and anguish. The barking, howling vocals are low in the mix of droning, lurching, lumbering noise, through which strings poke and burst, and as the noise sways and sloshes like a boat tossed hither and thither on waves in a storm as it attempts to guide its way through the entrance to the harbour, the listener finds themselves almost seasick with the unpredictable movement. Around seven minutes in, the tempest abates and the piece meanders into altogether mellower territory, where again I’m reminded of Earth circa Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light. And then, right at the end, there’s a massive jazz segment, backed with crushing guitars. I did not see that coming. And then ‘Abomination’ is different again- a gritty, gnarly, gut-spewing blast of noise that is simply too much…. But too much is never enough as we’re led through a racketacious swamp that starts out Motorhead and toboggans down to a crazed morass of manic jazz.

The two very different sides belong to completely different worlds, at least on the surface. But they are both staunchly strange, keenly experimental, and dedicated to inventive noisemaking, and as such, compliment one another well. And this also perfectly encapsulates the essence of the Leeds scene: diverse, noisy, weird, and wonderful.

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Watch: ‘Godvergeten’ by Growing Horns

Posted: 25 April 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Belgium’s harbingers of doom and despair, Growing Horns, have just unleashed a music video for ‘Godvergeten’, the latest single from their crushing debut album The Essence of Suffering, set to be released on May 3rd.

With riffs that crash like falling cathedral walls and vocals that echo like the wails of the damned, ‘Godvergeten’ is a sludge-soaked sermon of pure sonic punishment. Filmed in stark black and white, the video captures the primal energy and unfiltered bleakness that defines Growing Horns sound.

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Formed in 2015 in the shadow-cloaked depths of Kortrijk, Belgium, Growing Horns didn’t emerge as just another sludge band—they rose as a séance. A slow-burning, punishing invocation of pain, fury, and existential dread. Their sound isn’t forged—it’s exorcised.

Their 2019 debut EP, The Nobility of Pain, landed like a blow to the chest. A raw, unrelenting outpouring of emotion that critics called relentless and fans called home. It wasn’t just music—it was a wound. Pulsing. Festering. Unrepentantly real.

Now, the Belgian collective returns with The Essence of Suffering—an album that doesn’t simply gaze into the abyss, but sets up camp, builds an altar, and lights black candles in its honor. Heavier, darker, and more immersive than anything before, this new chapter digs even deeper into their signature sound: a harrowing fusion of sludge, doom, and stoner-infused despair.

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Teleost – Three Originals

Posted: 16 March 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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3rd January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Only the middle of March and I’m running behind on releases, so my apologies to Teleost for letting this one slip down the pile, especially as I’d been looking forward to it for some time. Even their earliest live shows, Before rebranding as Teleost, the duo, consisting of Leo Hancill and Cat Redfern, showed a rare musical chemistry, resulting in music of huge, immersive power. Recent shows, such as their recent York homecoming show with Cwfen, demonstrated that they have reached a whole other level of almost transcendental drone, a place where sound becomes a physical force.

But the challenge for any band who are so strong as a live unit, is how successfully can that be translated via the record medium. To commit the sound to tape – or digital recording – is in some way to compress and contain it, to reduce it to two – or even one – dimension. A recording is essentially a listening experience, without the visual element, without the klick drum or the low frequences vibrating your ribs, and all of the other stuff. So how have Teleost faced up to that challenge? Remarkably well. No doubt recording the guitar and drums live has helped retain the huge sound of the live experience. No slickening, studio polishing, just that huge sound caught in real-time, and Pedro at The Audio Lounge in Glasgow has done a remarkable job, clearly understanding what the band are about.

Three Originals opens with the ponderous grind of ‘Forget’, where a sustained whistle of reverby feedback is rapidly consumed by the first thick, sludgy chord: the distortion is speaker-decimatingly dense, and there’s so much low-end you feel it in the lower colon. It’s pure Sunn O))), of course, but then the ultra-heavy drums crash in and the vocals start… Hancill’s approach to singing is very much about rendering his voice an additional instrument rather than the focal point, and the elongated enunciations convey an almost abstractly spiritual sensation.

The first time I saw Earth was following their return with Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I, and I spent the entire show completely hypnotised by Adrienne Davies’ slow drumming. It was an experience I shall never forget: it was if time slowed down, and empires could rise and fall between each beat. I haven’t experienced anything similar since, until Teleost. And once you’ve had such a powerful visual experience in a musical context, it’s not only impossible to forget it, but it becomes integrated with hearing the band. And so it is that on listening to Three Originals, I find myself reliving that experience. It’s clear where Teleost draw their influences, but in amalgamating that low, slow drone of Sunn O))) with the more nuanced, tectonic crawling groove of latter-day Earth, they offer something that is distinct and different.

The seven-and-a-half-minute ‘Ether’ blasts in and the sheer density of that guitar is pulverizing. It simply does not sound like two people, let alone that it’s one guitar and no bass. There’s a delicate mid-section consisting of a clean guitar break before the landslide of distortion hits once more. Final track, ‘Throwaway’ is anything but, another sprawling, seven-minute monster dominated by gut-churning sludge and yawning yelps of feedback, while the vocals drift plaintively in the background.

Three Originals is without doubt their strongest work to date, my only complaint being that it simply isn’t long enough. But then, if each track was fifteen minutes long, it still wouldn’t be. In the field of doomy droney heaviosity, Three Originals is in a league of its own.

AA

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Guiltless – Teeth to Sky

Posted: 4 March 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Neurot Recordings – 7th March 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

If a release is on Neurot, there’s almost a guarantee that it’ll pack some heft, and that it’s likely to be good. And so it is with the debut album from Guiltless, who feature members of A Storm of Light, Intronaut, Generation of Vipers, and Battle of Mice and were ‘born from a love of experimental rock, noise rock, early industrial, sludge, and doom’. Their bio describes their first release, the EP Thorns as ‘crushing and cheerless’, adding that ‘it seemed to welcome the apocalypse looming on our collective horizon.’

The horizon is feeling closer than ever, the Doomsday Clock now set to just 89 seconds to midnight, reported as being ‘the closest the world has ever been to total annihilation.’ Teeth to Sky is a worthy successor to Thorns, and while it may not be quite as unutterably bleak, it sure as hell isn’t a laugh a minute, or even a month. And if anything, it’s heavier, denser, and it’s more layered, more exploratory.

‘Into Dust Becoming’ crashes in on a howl of feedback before the riff comes in hard. No delicate intro or gradual build-up here: just full-on, balls-out explosive power. It’s a veritable behemoth, dragging a megalithic weight and a brutal rawness as it churns away with devastating force. It’s one hell of an ear-catching way to open an album, and serves as a statement of intent.

‘One is Two’ barrels and lurches, the bass booming low while the guitar slices and slews across at jagged angles, and with the roaring vocal delivery, it’s dark and furious, as is fitting for a song that explores human behaviour and the fact that as a species we seem utterly hell-bent on destroying our own habitat. It’s a perverse contradiction that as the most advanced species to have evolved on earth, we have seemingly evolved to bring about the hastening of our own extinction, but then again, perhaps it’s for the best. But considering this, and the state of everything, brings a range of complex emotions which aren’t necessarily easy to articulate through language, or language alone – and this is when one comes to really appreciate the catharsis of visceral noise. And it’s a crushing force that blasts from the speakers on ‘In Starless Reign’; the guitar tone rings a squalling dissonance, and there are some deft tempo changes which accentuate the textural detail and enhance the impact.

They slow things to an eerie crawl on the epic ‘Our Serpent in Circle’ to round off side one, and although it doesn’t exactly offer respite, it does provide some variety ahead of the assault which ensues with the title track at the start of side two, followed by the utterly merciless ‘Lone Blue Vale’, a track of staggering density. Combined, they deliver a relentless sonic barrage. ‘Illumine’ closes the album with slow-paced precision, a harrowing seven-minute dirge designed to snuff the faintest glimmers of hope in your soul.

It’s a significant achievement that Guiltless manage to maintain such a punishing level of intensity for the duration of the whole album: Teeth to Sky will leave you feeling utterly pounded, breathless, and dazed.

AA

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Weed Demon – The Doom Scroll

Posted: 22 January 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Electric Valley Records – 31st January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The four-piece ‘sludge ‘n’ roll stoner metal band’ from Columbus, OH, come with the description of being ‘the audio equivalent of bong water spilled on a Ouija board’

The Doom Scroll – such an obvious but well-placed piece of punning – is their third album, and lands a full decade after their debut EP – or as they put it, they ‘exhaled a cloud of riffs over the doom metal scene with their debut EP, Stoned to Death… [and] since then, they’ve consistently delivered a steady dose of sludgy, groove-laden stoner doom potent enough to make Beelzebub himself bang his horns.’

For this outing, they promise ‘a reinvention of their signature sludge ‘n’ roll style of doom. Equal parts unrelenting and crushing, yet infused with heavy blues-inspired riffage, this new chapter sees Weed Demon expanding their sonic horizons like never before… Expect doom, gloom, sludge, thrash, death, blues, and even a dash of dungeon synth for good measure.’

That this is an album which contains just five tracks (six if you get the vinyl, which features a cover of Frank Zappa’s ‘Willy the Pimp’) is a fair indication of its form and the duration of said tracks: apart from a couple of interlude-pieces, they’re all six-plus minute sprawlers, with the colossal ‘Coma Dose’ spreading out over more than nine and a half minutes.

And so it is that after the slightly pretentious and proggy-sounding synth-led instrumental intro that is the woozy, wibbly, ‘Acid Dungeon’, they’re thundering in with the rifftastic ‘Tower of Smoke’. It’s a quintessential stoner-doom effort, a mid-paced slab of thick, distorted riffage with a strong Sabbath via Melvins vibe to it. It’s big on excess – of course it is. It simply wouldn’t work without the widdly flourishes that spin their way up from the dense, grainy overdrive that just keeps on ploughing away. And it keeps going on – and on. As it should, of course. It simply wouldn’t be befitting to batter a leaden riff for three or four minutes – you can’t mong out to that.

‘Coma Dose’ starts out gently with some desert rock twangs and a shuffling beat that’s almost a dance on the beach kind of groove, and there are – finally – some drawling vocals low in the mix. A couple of minutes in, of course, the riff lands, and the vocals switch from spacey prog to growly metal, and just like that, things get dark and they get heavy. But for all the weight, there’s still a floaty trippiness about it, a softer, mellowed-out edge: it’s heavy, but it’s not harsh, or by any means aggressive. There are some flamboyant drum fills and a super-gritty bass break over the song’s protracted duration, and at times, it sounds as if the batteries are starting to run low as it slows to a thick, treacly crawl and Jordan Holland’s vocals sound as if he’s being garrotted – and again, this is all on point.

There are elements of hardcore to the shouted vocals and pummelling power of ‘Roasting the Sacred Bones’, while ‘Dead Planet Blues’ brings a quite delicate blues-rock twist and even a hint of Alice in Chains circa Jar of Flies.

Rather than push hard at the parameters of the genre, Weed Demon nudge at the edges in all directions, and this works in their favour. There’s plenty here to keep diehard fans of all things sludgy, stonery, and doomy content without straying into territories that don’t sit well, but then there’s enough to make it different and interesting.

AA

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Watch: ‘Living Sin’ by Lord Sin

Posted: 28 November 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Enigmatic doom and psychedelic rock duo Lord Sin has released a haunting new video for their track ‘Living Sin,’ taken from their highly anticipated sophomore album Confessions, due for release on December 13th via Larvae Records. The video premiered at Heavy Blog Is Heavy, who praised the band’s ability to capture both the fragility and finality of mortality, stating: “Mysterious duo Lord Sin capture both sides of mortality with their eerie combination of doom and psychedelic rock. Their music is largely improvised and built in layers, the two feeding off the haunted rituals of doom metal and infusing them with the unnerving unpredictability of occult rock.”

‘Living Sin’ perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Confessions — a mesmerizing mix of haunting melodies and deeply atmospheric riffs. Watch the video here:

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The band shared their thoughts on ‘Living Sin,’ explaining: “’Living Sin’ depicts a phase in the life of someone close, where, on their deathbed, they confess all their sins to a loved one, burdened by the weight of pressure just before their last breath. This person lived their life like a specter, which is why the album is titled Confessions.”

Formed in 2020, Lord Sin made a powerful debut with Portrait of the Devil (released October 11, 2020, via Miasma of Barbarity Records), which laid the groundwork for the duo’s unique blend of improvisation, doom, and psychedelic dark rock. Now, with Confessions, the band has taken their raw, spontaneous approach to new heights.

The new album was recorded live in March 2021 at Rock’n’Raw Studios in Alfornelos by Bruno Jorge, capturing the visceral energy of Lord Sin’s performances. The raw guitar and drum takes were recorded in a single live session, followed by the addition of bass, guitar, vocals, and keyboards to complete the immersive sound. Mixing and mastering was done by Ricardo Towkuhsh Rodrigues at ERRE Estúdios in September 2022, giving the album a polished yet organic quality that retains the essence of Lord Sin’s gritty, improvisational style.

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