Posts Tagged ‘Stoner’

Deadpop – Ohm

Posted: 16 April 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Human Worth – 11th April 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Name three great but seemingly disparate acts for a collaboration, and the chances are that no-one, but no-one would pick Ghold, Bruxa Maria, and Test Dept. But here we are with the arrival of Ohm by Deadpop, which promises ‘Hard hitting & riff heavy sludge rock’ out of London.

It’s a pretty far-out work, it has to be said. Riding in on a siren-like wave of noise, ‘Saboteur’ announces the album’s arrival loudly and intensely, and it makes you sit up, alright, and your eyes pop when the guitars slam in after some forty seconds – which is a long time when it comes to listening to twitching, glitching feedback. The bass and drums meld together in a thick sludge of overdrive.

I’m not sure what the two parts of ‘Tomahawk’ are about – although it’s probably more likely to be a punk thing or the missile than expensive steak, and they bleed together for forge six minutes of thunderous racket which takes me back to circa 2009 when bands like Pulled Apart by Horses, Blacklisters, Chickenhawk (later rebranded as Hawk Eyes), and These Monsters were exploding on the Leeds scene. Sure, there’s been noisy shit in circulation forever, and grunge may have opened the doors to a wider, more mainstream, audience, but the indie charts and John Peel’s radio show was chock-solid with wayward guitar-driven racket. Human Worth have championed big noise from day one, but have perhaps leaned toward a different shade – or perhaps there hasn’t been anything quite of this nature released recently. And am I really feeling nostalgia for circa 2009? Well, actually, perhaps I am. It was sixteen years ago, after all. Kids doing their GCSE exams weren’t even born then.

I digress – as usual – but it’s relevant when positioning this release, an album that brings the kind of big sonic mayhem that feels less common now, and in context, feels quite different from anything else that’s been released recently. ‘Tomahawk II’ adds the percussive frenzy of Test Dept to the party, calling to mind early releases like the ‘Compulsion’ 12” and Beating the Retreat.

‘Third Metal Wheel’ is a lurching cacophony of lumbering guitars, layers of echoed vocals, and thunderous drumming, the outcome being something akin to Melvins current releases, and while the monster riffology of ‘Dirt Cheap Rage’ provides but an interlude at under two minutes, it’s well placed ahead of the experimental oddity of ‘Disgrace’, which straddles sludge rock, heavy psychedelia, and punk.

The six-and-a-half-minute ‘Yesterday’ summarises the album, really: a thick, full-heft riff slogalong that pounds away, relentlessly, it calls to mind Melvins, but also encapsulates the spirit of all that is stoner, sludge, and doom in a capsule.

The album’s final track, ‘Skygrave’ delivers a driving finish, a blistering blast of full-on, speaker-shredding distortion, with some brief warping samples and disturbances thrown in for good measure, and it’s a truly brain-melting occurrence. If on the surface, Ohm is just another sludgy / stoner noise, the actuality is so much more: this is an album that brings a certain experimental bent, on top of all the riffs. And yes, it does bring all the riffs. And that’s a fact. Ohm is a heavyweight riff-slugger – and that’s a fact, too. This album is a beast.

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Watch: ‘Among Us’ by Amammoth

Posted: 4 March 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Sydney’s sludgiest stoner outfit Amammoth has dropped a new single, ‘Among Us,’ from their forthcoming record, Distant Skies and the Ocean Flies, to be released via Electric Valley Records on February 21 on three vinyl variants and across digital platforms.

“Our second single ‘Among Us’ is a B-grade psychedelic, sci-fi adventure, kind of like ET on acid,” says Ammamoth about the track.

WATCH the video for ‘Among Us’ here:

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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.

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Vessel – Body and Soul

Posted: 17 October 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Majestic Mountain Records – 10th October 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

The Sisters of Mercy have a long history of unexpected covers, and a not only that, but of really ‘making them their own’, as you’ll hear TV talent show judges froth at contestants. Notably, among their B-sides, BBC sessions and live sets, they’ve covered Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’, ‘Emma’ by Hot Chocolate, ‘Gimme Shelter’ by The Rolling Stones, and Kylie’s ‘Confide in Me’. All great songs, all completely Sistersified, irreverent, but in no way sacrilegious.

When it comes to other bands covering The Sisters (obviously, I’m not meaning tribute acts here, a topic I’d perhaps rather avoid right now)… it tends to be metal bands doing pretty predictable and incredibly straight, faithful renditions, cranking up the distortion and giving the vocals some growl. Paradise Lost’s well-known rendition of ‘Walk Away’ is exemplary, in that it really brings precisely nothing. For this, I have to hand it to Lambchop for their stripped-back country rendition of ‘This Corrosion’, which succeeds in making the wildly bombastic epic something completely different, while still retaining something of its core essence. Such achievements are rare.

So here we come to this take on The Sisters’ 1984 single, ‘Body and Soul’: the band’s first release on Warners and their first recording in a 48-track studio. It was also, notably, the first to feature Wayne Hussey, and marked a radical shift from its predecessor, the seething alternative dancefloor monster and arguably definitive single, ‘Temple of Love’.

Critics and fans alike seemed rather underwhelmed at the time, and while it was a fixture of their live sets though ’84 and ’85, it’s not had many airings since their live comeback in 1990. And yet, for me, it’s a song which holds a unique pull which is hard to describe. The cascading lead guitar line, lacing its way across a busy, detailed, yet still nagging and repetitive bassline, and Eldritch going for a more melodic vocal style makes it something of an anomaly in the Sisters’ catalogue. It also contrasts with the rest of the tracks on the 12”: ‘Train’ is a blinder, murky, urgent, echoey and strung out, while ‘Afterhours’ is a truly unique classic, and the 48-track rerecording of ‘Body Electric’ is strong. In this context, I can appreciate why Vessel may have been drawn to the song.

Credit where it’s due, they’ve made a really decent fist of it, too. Sure, they’ve kind of metalized it a bit, but not in a way that’s big on cliché. And it’s not a completely blueprint copy with just a bit more distortion and growl, either. They’ve slowed it down a bit, and in doing so, succeeded in emphasising the guitar detail to good effect. If anything, this comes on more like Godflesh than any generic goth / metal, the thick, sludgy bass trudges along while the guitar rings harmonic, controlled feedback. The drum machine – an essential component here – follows the pattern of the original, but slowed and with more space and reverb, again, Godflesh and early Pitch Shifter come to mind. The vocals are gravelly, but not overtly metal and work well, especially with the harmonies in the chorus.

It does perhaps seem curious that this should be culled form a concept album but as the band explain, “It’s interesting that a cover song was able to fit the narrative of a concept album so well. I’m a huge fan of The Sisters Of Mercy, and was listening while working from home and taking breaks between writing for the new album when ‘Body And Soul’ spoke to me so directly. It was saying exactly what I needed to hear, what I wanted to say, and that was how the story of The Somnifer ends.”

For context, we learn that ‘Musically, The Somnifer merges the epic drama of Candlemass and Cathedral, the cosmic psychedelia of All Them Witches and King Buffalo, and the aggression of hardcore and crossover scenes, all tied together with the timeless spirit of classic heavy metal.’

It may well be interesting to hear this within that wider setting, but for now, as a standalone – and I write as a huge Sisters fan – that this is, for me, one of the best Sisters covers I’ve heard. The cover art is a nice tribute to one of the Sisters’ best sleeves, too.

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WALL – Brick by Brick

Posted: 1 September 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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APF Records – 30th August 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Perhaps it’s because I listen to and write about a pretty broad range of music, perhaps it’s something else entirely, but sometimes, I just get buzzed by the prospect of some monster riffage. And that’s what’s promised here with WALL’s debut, Brick by Brick.

Their press write-up got me in half a sentence, describing them as ‘An instrumental 2-piece heavy fucking riff machine, built brick by brick & riff by riff by twin brothers and Desert Storm members Ryan & Elliot Cole’ and the news that ‘debut album Brick by Brick is overflowing with unashamed Iommi-worshipping, instrumental, sludge/doom metal.’

There’s some flamboyant fretwork which adds detail – and a hint of extravagance – to the tunes, but in the main, they keep things tight, with pounding percussion and pulverising, full-weight riffery dominating the album from beginning to end.

Some may balk at the absence of vocals, and listening to the big, overdriven guitar heft of the album’s thirteen tracks, most of which pish their way past four minutes, which makes for quite a long album, I did occasionally thing that some throat-ripping larynx work would be of benefit. But then, how many great albums, even great bands, have disappointed with the vocals, for whatever reason? The number of times weak vocals have let down a strong instrumental sound for me is beyond my counting, so on balance, they’re wise to stick with the instrumental duo setup instead of risk diminishing the material.

The band – and album – are appropriately-named. This is just short of an hour’s worth of relentless riffery, and it’s solid. Like, well, a wall, and heavy, like, er, bricks. These may not sound like revelatory statements, but the point is that so many bands promise the world and barely deliver more than few pebbles. WALL hammer our hard riffs, back-to-back.

‘Legion’ is almost buoyant and the intro at least offers a picked guitar line that sits with the turn of the millennium metal sound before big, thick power chords crash in, evoking the spirit of the 70s and then some. ‘Avalanche’ brings with it some busy fingerwork, something which veers toward excess on ‘The Tusk’, but is kept in check for much of the album, thankfully.

There’s not really anything that’s new on Brick by Brick, but this kind of consistent riffology is comforting in a way, and moreover, they don’t disappoint.

There are some nice, atmospheric and pleasantly musical passages to be found along the way, and they clearly understand the power of the dynamic as well as of volume. When they take things down, it reels you in, before slamming on all the pedals and blasting you away with big, big chords. A few tracks feel a bit like filler, but then again, they provide some contrast, which is never a bad thing when an album is very much centred around one specific thing, namely headbanging instrumental riffs.

There are a couple of covers, and one night question the necessity of their inclusion, particularly closing with a Black Sabbath cover (‘Electric Funeral’): the may have been wiser to cut it on the penultimate track, the massive slugger that is ‘Filthy Doner Kebabs on a Gut Full of Lager’, but maybe they just don’t know when they’ve had enough, eh? But for that, this definitely feels like an eight out of ten in terms of delivering what it sets out to.

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Watch: ‘Try’ by Elephant Tree

Posted: 11 June 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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ELEPHANT TREE are having a party and they’re inviting everyone to hitch a ride and join in! September 2024 marks ten years since Magnetic Eye’s release of the beloved British stoner doom quartet’s first album Theia (2014), and in observance of that milestone, the label is proud to showcase three releases celebrating one of the label’s landmark bands.

Theia (Anniversary Edition) and Habits (2020) are presented as reissues without additional audio content, but in new physical formats. The former comes packaged with updated artwork and significantly expanded background content (see below for more details).

The third release entitled Handful of Ten is a new full-length containing brand-new tracks, demos, and b-sides, and includes two of the first new ELEPHANT TREE tracks in numerous years, recorded specifically for this compilation. All three albums have been scheduled for release on September 6, 2024.

As a first delicious taste from Handful of Ten, the Londoners release the video single ‘Try’. You can see the video here:

…and order the album here.

ELEPHANT TREE comment on ‘Try’: “This was really a cathartic exercise in playing something a little different, written with an initial cast-away attitude after a few pints on a sweltering summer’s day”, guitarist and singer Jack Townley writes on behalf of the band. “We don’t play faster songs often, let alone get space to add them to records. The subject matter is about someone conforming to try be a model citizen, not wanting to step out of line in fear of the repercussions. He tries his hardest to not express his alternate views while others around him conform and in the end it all boils over, leaving him feeling ‘forever lost’.”

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Watch: ‘Stitched Up’ by Barbarian Hermit

Posted: 10 June 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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2nd August 2024 will see the return of Barbarian Hermit, Manchester’s leading purveyors of groove laden, stoner/doom metal.

Released on APF Records, Mean Sugar may just be the heaviest ever tribute to Northern life. Frontman Simon Scarlett comments,

“The album is about what we know, and that is the bitter-sweetness of growing up in a northern town. It’s a crude representation of what it is to be us these past few years: Lads catapulted against our will into manhood, at a time when everything is changing, and yet here we stay under the comforting and watchful shadow of the Pennine hills.

The north is an invigorating place, there’s a post-industrial beauty here unlike anywhere else. It’s also a tough place, precarious and on the edge. Sometimes we can feel powerless and unheard; our response to this, is to pick up guitars, make noise and hammer down a punishing rhythm.”

Written over a 3 year period, Mean Sugar is a cathartic creation, set against a back-drop that has seen people endure global pandemic, endless political turmoil, a cost of living crisis and war. During these times often the best coping mechanism is to go into a room with your friends and focus your energy on playing some very heavy and loud music.

Recorded by Joe Clayton at No Studio and mastered by Chris Fielding (Foel Studios), the album sees the return of original vocalist Simon Scarlett who helped craft the band’s debut ‘One’ EP, originally released in 2016 (and reissued on APF Records in 2021). First single ’Stitched Up’ was according to the band,  "one of the first songs we wrote as a full band after Si rejoined and it was one of those where everything clicks and it almost writes itself. It just fell out of us. It features not only one of the catchiest riffs we’ve ever written but also one of the heaviest and most disrespectful.  Lyrically the track is about perseverance. We are surrounded by disruption, things that trip us up, make us lose sleep and neglect our own fulfilment."

Watch the video now:

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Credit: Jay Massie

Watch: ‘Palm Reader’ by High Desert Queen

Posted: 1 June 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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HIGH DESERT QUEEN celebrate the release of their sophomore full-length Palm Reader with a new video single of the title track. The Texas desert rockers are also streaming their hot new album in full now on all relevant outlets.

“We couldn’t be happier with how this album came together,” vocalist Ryan Garney writes. “Going to YellowDog, and deciding to record the whole thing live without a click track while creating new songs after getting off the road allowed this to be an album that’s helping mold what High Desert Queen is becoming. The title track came together in the studio when Phil started playing the drum beat as a joke. We were all laughing until Rusty ripped into the intro guitar riff, and within an hour we had the music completely written. What you hear on Palm Reader is what we created in real time, and it’s not like anything we’ve written before. We knew right away it needed to make it on the album, and it really showcases the spontaneous creativity behind the entire record.”

Watch the workout video for ‘Palm Reader’ here:

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Listen: ‘Under the Influence’ by WyndRider

Posted: 15 May 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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WyndRider’s second record, Revival, is scheduled to hit shelves on 7 June on vinyl and digital via Electric Valley Records, with a CD release handled independently. The East Tennessee stoner doom band is now streaming the second single, ‘Under the Influence.’

Of the track, WyndRider states: “Everybody is under the influence of something. Pick your poison.”

Listen to the track here:

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After playing all over the Eastern US, WyndRider returned to their home in the Appalachian Mountains, focusing in on the hopes and horrors of living there with an unapologetically heavy Southern groove. The album Revival, washed in the blood of its region, sheds light on the smoke and mirrors of life in the Bible Belt and provides a fix for those left craving more after the first dose that WyndRider brought to the scene.

This year, WyndRider will be hitting the stage at Maryland Doom Fest, Gravitoyd Doom Fest in Houston, and Holler of Doom IV, alongside numerous other cities and states.

Upcoming Shows:

5/24 – Knoxville, TN – BrickYard Bar & Grill
5/26 – Charlotte, NC – The Milestone Club 
6/08 – Johnson City, TN – The Hideaway 
6/20 – Indianapolis, IN – Black Circle
6/21 – Akron, OH – Buzzbin 
6/22 – The Maryland Doom Fest at Cafe 611
6/23 – New York, NY – The Bowery Electric 
7/05 – Asheville, NC – The Odd 
7/11 – Nashville, TN – Springwater 
7/12 – London, KY – Holler of Doom Fest at Mountain View Farm 
7/13 – Cincinnati, OH – The Comet

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Gramma Vedetta – Don’t Cross the Line

Posted: 9 April 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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5th April 2024

James Wells

While firmly rooted in classic stoner rock, Gramma Vedetta’s latest offering, which follows on the heels of album The Hum of the Machine, which made number twenty-five in the Doom Charts (the existence of which is something I was unaware of), is an expansive, ambitious heavy prog monster of a tune. Yes, it’s over six minutes long and built around a big, swinging blues-based riff which displays elements of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but also brings in a hint of Pink Floyd in its widescreen feel. It also packs in a bunch of changes in tempo and transitions through a number of quite distinct segments.

Despite all of the elements having been done to death, ‘Don’t Cross the Line’ still feels like it’s doing something a little bit different, and, more importantly, it does what it does pretty well. Since it’s nigh on impossible to come out with something that’s entirely new – and even less likely to conjure something that’s new and remotely listenable or worth hearing – quality counts for a lot. Balancing beefy riffage with keen melody, ‘Don’t Cross the Line’ has enough to appeal to both traditionalists and those who like it with a bit of a twist, and that makes it pretty solid in my book.

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