Our picks for Aprilâs most under-appreciated releases feature some shiny new faces and bands that have rocked our socks before.Â
Stoner Doom from Copenhagen
From the world of stoner doom, Goatsmoker brings us the growling single Gods of Gunzilla. The bandâs Insta describes the track as âdoomy AF.â True to their word, Goatsmoker delivers six minutes of face-squashing, slab-dragging goodness. This trudging track is the second single since their debut album in 2022.Â
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Sludge Doom from British Columbia
For those of you who like our doom niiiiiiice and sludgy, itâs time to shake hands with severed arm. Their new 4-track LP, Reaching Murderous for the Bankerâs Neck, is visceral and hideous. You wonât be able to turn away. Samples from Werner Herzog movies and other nihilistic works act as sutures keeping this throbbing abomination from leaking pus everywhere. Strap on your PPE and wade into the plodding, down-tuned sludge.
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Psychedelic Metal from Poland
This isnât the first time weâve covered a The Howling Eye release, and with the mind-melting psych theyâve been putting out, it probably wonât be the last. This month the Polish trio released a recording of their show at Rifffields Festival 2022. All five songs drip with the energy and sizzle that only a live performance can offer. Things start out introspective and spacey with the medicated track, Erf. Intensity builds. We ride the rainbow for over 13 minutes, staggering through valleys and galloping over riff-topped peaks. The other tracks in the set are cherry-picked from The Howling Eyeâs back catalog. Each piece is funkier and more psychotropic than the last. The gods of groove are smiling down at this offering.Â
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Psych Rock/Sludge from Phoenix
If sludgy desert rock curls your toes, then Phoenix psych fiends Slow Drawl have what you need. Their debut EP, Pile of Bones, will rattle your teeth and shake your coccyx. The bluesy riffs and punk swagger oozing out of Skeleton King send listeners careening through the Sonoran Desert on a peyote trip for the ages. Itâs intoxicated, loose, and brassy. After all, â Need some flesh. Got shit to do. Iâve got some books that are due back soon.âÂ
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Drone Doom from Louisiana
Dhyana is a one-man dronesmith who shapes Buddhist meditation and doom metal together like sand in a zen garden. Weâve vibed with his mind-altering heavy drones once before⌠okay, twice. Bodhicitta is the bandâs eighth full-length album since 2021, yet the sterling quality of Dhyanaâs releases never waivers. Commenter Pat said it best,Â
âWake up
See email
Buy Album
Every time.â
Spoken like a true acolyte, Pat. Weâre with you.
Hey hey, my little garbage goblins. The moon is waning and the end of the month is nigh. Itâs time to talk about the best doom, drone, and psych releases you missed in March.
Some stellar doom metal dropped this month, but thereâs one release everyone has been sleeping on. Negation I by Inverted Barrows is 16 straight minutes of heart-wringing, soul-interning funeral doom. This solo project out of Cincinnati is a lumbering slog to the center of hopelessness, complete with ethereal melodies, infernal growls, and pacing so slow that Iâm STILL waiting for the next beat to drop. Donât let the glacial drum beat fool you â Inverted Barrows continually stretches and contracts the tension on this track as if it was its own instrument. If you havenât yet joined the candlelight vigil for humanity, then hit play and join the procession.Â
And incredible bounty of good drone metal dropped in March, but one EP stands apart from the pack. Doom Vigil I by Chthonic Rites was recorded at Old First Reformed Church in Brooklyn, giving it that full, resonant sound that only massive limestone architecture can impart. The sister tracks on this EP, Luna Winds pts. 1 and 2 were recorded live at an event for the weary. The trio weaves a tapestry of sweeping gloom and drained despair. The tracks are as grim as they are hypnotic. The dismal drone and evocative audio on Doom Vigil I are truly a divine pairing. đ
If you need a little psychedelic palate cleanser, my recommendation this month is Navegando al Paraiso by Snakes Donât Belong In Alaska. Drop into SDBIAâs improvised dreamscapes peppered with sounds from the natural world. On Eternal Sunday chirping birds and running water are intertwined with world-melting riffs in a cosmic jam session. My Void is Full of Colour has a mellow folk rock head and a blazing plasma tail. Cosmology and biology collide when snippets of a scientific lecture peek through the kaleidoscopic groove.Â
Each of these offerings have tapped into something hypnotic. In a month packed with great releases, these smaller bands encouraged us to make eye contact our despair and wander into the wild. Check them out on Bandcamp and give âem some love.Â
Weâve reached the end of February, darklings, and with the passing of another birthday Iâm another step closer to the grave. Hereâs what cropped up this month (besides that one snow-white pubeâŚ)
â FEBRUARY FUNERAL DOOM â
The album that whispered sweet nothings in my ear this month was Pleroma Mortem Est by Monovoth. Iâve covered this Argentinian drone doom project before, but Monovoth continues to set the bar higher with every release. If youâre looking for a soundtrack to our collective plod toward nothingness, then this is it.Â
Clamor Resonat is particularly introspective, with a distant howl drawing ever nearer. This funerary slog has the slowest of builds, but manages to avoid predictability at every turn. When the next note finally drops itâs low and slow enough to satisfy the most discerning doomheads.
Despite its brevity, Somnia stands out with its shimmering guitar tone in the sparse atmosphere. Itâs unquestionably one of the most beautiful doom arrangements Iâve heard in a while.Â
If Somnia is all lunar radiance, then Denique Mors is the dark side of the moon. This oneâs an agonized dirge with an experimental spirit. This gritty offering toys with texture and intensity. Brutal guest vocals by Lindsay Oâ Connor help usher us through the gates of hell.Â
If you like Dylan Carlsonâs sound, but wish it was more ponderous and grim, then this shitâs for you. These tracks struggle with their own mortality in a sundowning world. Join the procession, and grab this on Bandcamp before your own lights go out.
â A SWEET DRONE RELEASE â
If dark ambient soundscapes are your thing, then youâll wave your antennae with glee to know that drone master insectarium just dropped the necrophage emerges divine. Wriggle right into this sonic cocoon as we journey through the lowest moments in life and out the other side. Owlripper Recordings is always generous with their music, so scuttle down to the bottom of the Bandcamp page to find the link for a free download code.Â
â SAVORY SINGLES â
Long Beach doom cats O ZORN! have been serving up post-hardcore goodness lately with a string of singles. My favorite has got to be Slow Mood. Like the monster that lives in your bedroom, this brooding earworm skulks in the corner, but its hulking frame is impossible to ignore. I swear youâre going to be humming this shit all day.
February also brought us Bow Down by Detroitâs Temple Of The Fuzz Witch. Itâs some properly fucking fuzzed-out blackened doom. Itâs thick as tar and absolutely vicious. I want to climb into a vat of this and bathe in it until I turn into the creature from the black metal lagoon.Â
Hold it right there, buddy. I know youâre eager for a fresh start in a new year, but you missed some great shit. Before we close the book on 2023 letâs slather some love on the best releases that flew under the radar this year. Here are the underappreciated doom, drone, and psych picks that got our horns up this year. đ¤
If you like your doom with a heaping helping of heavy psych and topped with gritty vocals, then this oneâs for you. Kentucky outfit Acromancer serves up weed-soaked riffage and tasty grooves cooked low and slow over a psychedelic flame. The result is a hunk of heavy psych that slides right off the bone, and an aftertaste that kicks you in the teeth. The Influence is a finger-licking combination of spaced-out licks and menacing weight. Spear of Fate is heavy on the overdrive, with chuggy riffs and pack-a-day vocals rumbling over top like a pickup truck over gravel.
This album should be considered a deadly weapon. Press play, and this one-man doom monster crushes everything in a three-mile radius. It wrestles with the horrors of being adrift in space, weighing its plodding doom sound against hardcore vocals and a whiff of industrial grime. A Broken Vessel is an unsettling sci-fi trip dripping with existential dread. Lightbearer is the most ponderous scream track Iâve heard in a long time. Prepare to be ground into dust.
Iâve covered Mantras before, but this year heâs really outdone himself. Nada Brahma is a triumph of atmospheric drone doom. Tracks like Ptah stretch their tentacles into mythology, seizing and assimilating instruments from across the globe. Tibetan throat singing, Indian tanpura and tabla, and classical guitar are just as likely to make an appearance as drums and electric bass. The second half of the album is purely meditative drone. The long tracks compel listeners to zone in and drop out completely. The intelligent compositions and creative sound manipulation in these songs make for some really compelling metal. This oneâs a âmust buy.â
Holy face-melting stoner doom, batman! These Canadians are setting fire to the sky and painting the desert with this searing EP. Fans of Kyuss will toke and rejoice. Each of the four tracks on this little hellraiser is nastier and more psychedelic than the last. Thereâs not a second of this EP that isnât top shelf shit. From the searing guitar work on U7to the chug and snarl of Johnny, each song is a swig from a different bottle. The EP culminates with Electrocity. This one reeks of leather, stale beer, and unfiltered cigarettes. The track has the grim countenance and unhurried swagger of a gunslinger ready for death. The rugged vocals dip into blackened territory in just the right moments.10/10, would take this acid trip again.
Back in February, Mammoth Caravan released their mighty avalanche of an album, Ice Cold Oblivion. Just six months later, this single dropped with much less fanfare. If you skipped this release youâre making a big mistake. Clocking in at over sixteen minutes, this behemoth is not to be ignored. The track tells the story of an archaeologist who discovers a mammoth and cuts himself on its tusk under the light of the moon. The piece starts out haunting and slow but evolves continually, expanding and contracting like the labored breathing of an enormous beast. I, Megafauna is both alive and unknowable. Blackened vocals kick in, and the song rips itself open in a frenzy of electric ecstasy. The charred, sludgy bits of the song are balanced so carefully so that they never overtake the creeping doomy atmosphere.
Exactly how devastating is this track? It was originally released as a CD attached to a saw blade, and even THAT understates how savage this single is.Â
This is stunning atmospheric funeral doom with a darkwave kiss. The band has been around since 1999 and if you havenât gotten around to checking them out yet, this is your sign.Â
Some dude in Austin, Texas came out with this magnum opus outtaâ nowhere. Itâs an epic tale of inescapable fate told in doom metal. Sit back with a glass of whisky and enjoy the eighteen-track journey through lands unknown.
Remember guitar guru Allsiah? Well, heâs partnered up with vocalist P.L.H. to bring you Dawn Brought Savior. Her floating vocals play against his brooding devotional doom-drone for a sound thatâs truly otherworldly.
Dhyana has been busy this year, but my favorite release has been the almost forty-eight minute drone exploration, Dzogchen. Primordial ground is said to have the qualities of purity, spontaneity, and compassion. This doom meditation spirals into that concept, delivering listeners deep within.Â
I was trying to focus on longer releases for this list, but this single was just too good to ignore. This hulking slab of stoner doom is perfectly hewn and polished to a shine with vocals from Miss Carmen Garcia. Iâm hoping weâll hear more from these Madrid doomers in 2024.
Here at Doom and Dead we shine a light on the underground doom, drone, and psych acts youâve never heard of. Every month we choose a new release that deserves more attention than itâs gotten. This monthâs pick is from the UK band Dead Cosmonauts.Â
We find ourselves living in dark times. Every day we struggle a little harder in a world thatâs more expensive, more hateful, and more toxic than ever. Dead Cosmonautsâ first full-length album, Parasomnia feels like a warning, or maybe a premonition, of how much worse things can get. These songs are constantly in flux, shifting between graceful melodies and dissonant noise. But above all, these tracks are undeniably HEAVY. The album was mastered by Cult Of Lunaâs Magnus Lindberg, so expect a sound thatâs both haunting and forceful. These Sheffield-based doomers offer up a feast of technical musicianship and audacious songwriting that will keep you enthralled from beginning to end. So strap on your gas masks, and step out with me into the post-metal wasteland that is Parasomnia.Â
Liminal Space (65 mins REM, vitals = stable) is some moody, chaotic doom. Listening to this track is like dragging your fingertip across a wine glass; the sounds are both resonant and screeching, satisfying and unsettling. The song boasts deadly sharp riffage and decisive drumming, all bathed in a noxious broth of heavy fuzz. The composition shifts into a lower gear as we approach the finish line. Vocal samples from radio presenter Ailbhe MĂĄirĂŠad emerge from the digital snow, painting detail into the post-apocalyptic scene. The weight becomes unbearable, and the song finally buckles under the crushing atmosphere.
Beneath the Choking Sky starts with an ominous drone. Tone and texture form a boundless landscape. In time, the drone gives way to an introspective melody that slowly expands to dominate the space. The track is layered and delicate, but dangerous â a spiderâs web that tangles listeners in silvery strands of desperation and despair.
Kenopsia propels the album forward with a digital pulse and an insatiable groove. Odd rhythms and novel drum patterns flare up and burn out rapidly, their short lives leaving stains on the unforgiving environment. The track flirts with intensity, building in magnitude only to pull itself back again. Itâs a titillating composition, adroitly and artfully executed.Â
In Spirals It Took Everything is a palate cleansing soundscape that weighs the noises of nature against digital human chatter. The vibe ranges from safe and cozy, to wondrous.
Swallowed In Dark Waters is mysterious, plush. It exists in a dim expanse with wafting smoke and the cloying aftertaste of plucked guitar strings. Mania descends and the composition is impassioned, even fanatical. Sumptuous bow work from guest violinist Ruth Nicholson adds spice to the experience. In the wake of this outburst, the mood curdles. Chugging, slow passages are interwoven with bursts of frenzied lunacy. Extra notes jostle for domination in the narrow space of each beat. This piece is nothing if not restless. The tide shifts again and again, pulling us into ever deeper waters. This track is not the longest on the album, but undoubtedly one of the most profound.Â
The final offering, A Vision From The Valley Of Dry Bones, starts out insubstantial and jolly as if tapped out on a toy. A heftier layer of instrumentation rolls over the desert, dropping a barrage of gritty guitar riffs and jolting drum work. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls⌠dyinâ timeâs here! Digital effects whiz by like meteorites. This piece fiddles with sound and texture, but remans melodic at every turn.
Nothing remains stationary on Parasomnia. Everything transmutes, changes behavior, and is continually replaced with something new. The bleak and unforgiving realm the band has conjured feels like a very real omen of things to come. The album oozes with narrative, even if the story is up for interpretation.
Iâm convinced that the members of Oakland 5-piece Haurun have sprouted roots. The band has tapped down into the doom, drone, and psych genres to grow a sound thatâs all their own. The bandâs new album, Wilting Within, is a bouquet of night blooming tracksâeach gloomier and more narcotic than the last. Drop the needle with me as we tiptoe into Haurunâs wicked garden.Â
The album opens on Abyss. The track slowly manifests from thin air. The creeping tune is spectral, otherworldly. Floating vocals by Lyra Cruz reach across the veil to caress your gray matter. Itâs a grim phantasm of a songâ the perfect portent of whatâs to come.Â
Lost & Foundis a dose of melancholy distilled down to its purest form, and laced with fuzz. A slow guitar riff rings out with sustain for days. Yet for all of its shoegazing, the composition is surprisingly nimble. This song is a somber stranger murmuring sweet and terrible nothings in your ear.
Tension slithers through the desert with a forked tongue and an audacious attitude. Cruzâs voice twists and dives through the nocturnal landscape. The intensity expands steadily, as the track evolves into a psychedelic trip by firelight. Pay attention to the fierce fucking drum work on this hypnotic offering.
Flying Low keeps the altered state rolling with spaced out guitars, mesmerizing vocals, and a riff that bends and burrows its way through your skull. Get liquified, and let all the colors melt together with this darkly beautiful track.Â
Lunar opens on a groovy elastic riff. Anesthetic vocals threaten to waft away, untethered. An instrumental break adds heft to an otherwise buoyant track.Â
Clocking in at over 11 minutes, Soil makes for an eloquent closing statement. Drone doom fans are in for a treat here. The plodding pace and weighty hum make this piece absolutely devastating from the get-go. Cruz explores the lower register of her voice. The song takes unexpected twists and turnsâgathering energy into a snappy beat and rocking out in psychedelic ecstasy, before slamming on the brakes and wading through the muck in a funerary slog.
Wilting Within is rich with hypnotic grooves, creeping drones, and withering vocals. Every song on this album is a unique and deadly bloom in Haurunâs poison garden. Rarely will you find six tracks so darkly emotive. Wilting Within is destined to be a prized species in any collection.Â
A Body That Could Pass Through Stone And Trees is an exercise in modern alchemy. Punishing riffs, paradoxical vocals, and electronic pandemonium are the base elements in this brew, but the resulting metal is more than the sum of its parts. The Salt Pale Collectiveâs sound is a unique amalgamation of growls, celestial singing, devastating doom instrumentation, and riotous noise. This trio from the north of England play as if they are generating their own electricity, driving a spontaneous chemical reaction between opposing forces. Letâs step into the album, and see whatâs bubbling.
The opening track, Tria Prima, soaks your brain in a moody brine of crashing drum beats, tribal grooves, and digital noise. Youâre inundated with soundâ baptized in mercury, salt, and sulphur.Â
The Great Work isnât shy. This track mashes your face into spice grinder with rumbling blackened vocals. The funeral doom pacing and density are paired with slippery clean vocals and an electronic hum. Listening to this song is like stepping through the ruins of a burned-out laboratory thatâs glitching around you. A tremendous achievement.
The Metabaron is more serene, with specks of digital chaos whizzing around the ether. Itâs a melancholy, atmospheric soundscapeâ a dream that slowly becomes more threatening. Tension draws taught and slackens again as the elements of this song are transmuted over and over.Â
Exploding Triangles is so heavy itâs bursting at the seams. Crashing drums and otherworldly growls meet beguiling clean vocals. The harmonies in this fucker will leave you with goosebumps. If entropy had a soundtrack, this would be it.Â
Sermon Of The Edacious Revenant is an imposing slab of metal. The disjointed noise floating at the top of this track finally sinks through a chemical solution, and settles into an unnerving pounder of a song. A heavy riff stirs the cauldron. Wear protection, kids: the fumes coming off this one will leave your head buzzing.Â
The title track, A Body That Could Pass Through Stones And Trees, is a beautiful piece of doom. In the darkness, vocal harmonies resonate like atomic particles vibrating together. A piece of spoken word is capped off with some crushing riffage and a swirl of synapses sparking. Itâs a sandstorm in a bottle.Â
The King Crowned In Red is a bruiser with a guttural roar. Amid the struggle and fury, the female vocal seems like a soothing presence at first⌠but youâll quickly find yourself ensnared. This track has the off-kilter strut of a practitioner who finally prevailed over the laws of god and science, but whose victory was won at a staggering cost. In the aftermath, a half-melted organ melody picks its way through the rubble.
The tracks on A Body That Could Pass Through Stones And Treesare marvels of modern chemistryâ continuously changing form, but always one cohesive unit. This album unites disparate sounds and ideas, rendering gold from the firmament. Donât sleep on this album; there are riches within.
The dog days of summer are uncertain times. Itâs hard to concentrate when Sirius rises and the world is sizzling. Even my cozy little canyon feels unnaturally humid and still. The newest offering from Liverpool quartet Mairu feels like the perfect soundtrack to get us through these torpid days. Their album Sol Cultus is packed with languorous post-metal instrumentals and slow, doomy riffs. Itâs too fucking hot to mince words, so letâs get into it.
The album opens on Torch Bearer. This track toys with tensionâ sometimes laid back and ponderous, and sometimes taught with nervous strumming. The hammering heartbeat of the drums keeps things moving forward. The shining, ecstatic crescendo is a brain freeze in the Sahara.Â
Perihelion is a pensive beast. It manages to sound simultaneously cavernous and warm. The song is grim but oddly buoyant, and makes for some damn good metal.
Still and fragile interludes like Inter Alia give the longer pieces on this album room to breathe.
The bandâs 2019 single Wild Darkened Eyessounds better than ever here. The track is furious and haunting with a groove that pounds its way to the finish.Â
Drummer Ben Davis rattles our brains with a hypnotic performance on The Scattering Dust. Heavy, wandering baselines and acrid riffs give this track a perilous undertone.Â
Atar is built from imposing slabs of percussion, and grouted with heaping globs of intensity. Cave-man beats lead the way; the rest of the band crashes in after, like the Kool-Aid man on roids.Â
Where Atar was pounding and insistent, Rites of Ember is ethereal and melancholy. Clocking in at nearly ten and a half minutes, this behemoth moves at its own pace. Fervor creeps in like the tide until weâre up to our necks in a frothing mass. Just as weâre in danger of being overtaken, the tide turns and washes out again.Â
Mairu seems right at home in the doldrums of summer, deftly manipulating tone and mood to glide through the thick atmosphere. Pick up Sol Cultus, and slip into the thrall of post-doom oblivion.Â
There’s nothing like summer in the city. Heat rises in waves off the asphalt. Palm fronds strike poses against an endless blue backdrop. Everyone seems to pulse to the same languid groove. Heat and light melt everything down into a rainbow soup, and by the end of June psychedelic tunes feel like the only viable soundtrack to daily life. It comes as no surprise, then, that my pick for the most interesting underground album of the month comes from Polish psych outfit The Howling Eye. Their latest offering, List Do Borykan is a 7-track vacation from reality. You never know what’s going to happen next. Did things just shift from space rock to jazz, or from punk to funk? If you’re open to adventure, join me on this psychotropic journey around the corner and up to the stars.
Space Dwellers, Episode 1features a slinky, spaced-out groove with percussion straight out of your local jazz lounge. The evolving melody reacts to the forces of gravity as you drift between planets. The vocals—delivered like spoken-word poetry—recount a tale of a stranded crew meeting bizarre musical aliens. The wandering melody is a colorful oil slick floating atop a vat of liquid sour candy.
If you thought the whole album was going to have you gliding around in a cosmic dreamland, then the second track may come as a bit of a surprise. Medieval is bristling folk rock with a punk edge—the type of thing that would be right at home on a Gogol Bordello album. The Howling Eye describes the song as “a bard’s tale of seeing through social hierarchies, defying the laws of tradition and seeking your own path in life.” The band uses a mix of languages to make their point, and bangs it out for an explosive finish.
Brothers starts out as a mellow dreamscape and develops into an intense jam. Different instruments take turns punching out shapes in the fuzz. A guitar soars and dives in the thick midsummer haze. Take time to bathe in the amniotic camaraderie, my friends, and don’t forget to pass that joint to the left.
Space Dwellers, Episode 2 arrives wide awake, and brings the funk to the party! Don’t get too comfortable, though, because The Howling Eye is anything but predictable. This chameleon gradually shifts from snappy red to cool violet. The tune spends time suspended in stonerville before slowing down and dropping into doom territory. It’s a fascinating transformation that typifies the band’s adventurous use of texture and mercurial songwriting style.
Caverns is a refreshing cool-mint palette cleanser of an instrumental. This ethereal groove is mellow and easily digestible, leaving you ready for anything.
Surprise! You probably weren’t expecting a funky dance hit, but Space Dwellers, Episode 3is a minute and a half of pure booty-bouncing good times. Shake those maracas, and don’t take yourself too seriously! These cats sure don’t.
The album closes on Johnny. It’s an artsy, trippy ode to a friend. The track is thick with bass-driven hypnotic riffs and a spirit of brotherhood. Rock on, friends.
Listening to List Do Borykan is like stepping into a stoner movie where four buddies heading to the corner store end up on a wild interstellar adventure. It’s a thrilling escapade centered around mind-bending riffs and deep friendships, with musical twists and turns I never saw coming. If you’re looking for a soundtrack to your psychedelic summer, then this is it.
Maybe the planets were in perfect alignment. Maybe the strain I’m smoking had me feeling inspired. Maybe Elon’s chip short-circuited my brain and made me love everything. Whatever it was, SO much weird and interesting stuff dropped this month that I couldn’t choose just one! Here are my favorite abominations that wriggled to the surface in May.
First up is Oregon funeral doom outfit Usnea. Their latest album, Bathed in Light, is a slow trudge through the depths, full of calloused textures and black metal edges. Ponderous riffs and ferocious growls jostle for control, as if to echo society’s continued collapse.
A few stand-out tracks:
From Soot and Pyre is a landslide in slow motion— devastating and grisly with a little post-punk influence sprinkled in.
Premeditatio Malorum offers a jarring stillness that develops intensity over time.
Uncanny Valley is a deathly-slow thing of beauty that slithers in the darkness. Sexy. Vile. The drum work on this track is not to be missed. When the fury erupts you won’t be able to look away.
Fans of Evoken will want to take in in this expansive slab of an album.
It’s pronounced “Saturn, deity” but without the D. This stoner doom band from the Texas panhandle slapped their motto right on their Bandcamp page: “Smoking marijuana is sorcery.” Fair nuff, friends. But don’t think for a second these stoners are going to slouch on the job. Saturniidaedelivers a dynamic and adventurous performance, and they leave it ALL in the recording booth. The songs on Book of Rituals are sludgy, sexy, powerful, and desperate. Cult of Abyss is a particular favorite; this track conjures fire with grimy guitar lines and alarmingly catchy vocals.
Listen to this album if you enjoy any of the following:
The Belgians are at it again with this heavy psych masterpiece, Aashray. The band seamlessly integrates everything from lap steel and theremin to drums and Tibetan bowls, casually claiming their place on the cosmic throne of improv mastery. This album offers spacier sounds and more cohesive jams than ever before, as the band seems to enter that perfect flow state.
Get swept away with Apex Ten’s floating riffs and atmospheric jam style in Naga or let Deaf Snake rattle your back teeth. Now bow down, and prepare to be anointed in fuzz
By now it’s no surprise that I’m a fan of this experimental drone doom from Croatia. (Their previous album was my favorite release of 2022.) If this band paints with noise, then guitar, radio, and piano are their brushes. Frontman Luka says “This one is a bit more droney than usual, it was inspired a bit by some personal tragedies that happened, i think it gives it a bit of a heavy feel in an emotional way.”
That emotion comes through from the very first track. Stvar koju Gabrijel nije odsvirao (“The thing Gabriel didn’t play”) is an introspective journey through a buzzing fog.
The second track digs deep, tapping into the emotional mother lode. Mladi skelet nalazi mir (“Young skeleton to make peace”) features a brittle piano melody that tiptoes through the fuzz. Fans of Nine Inch Nails’ “Ghosts” series should take notice of this one.
Sa lampinjonom pored obale/Posvećenje mora (“With lanterns by the coast/Consecration of the sea”) is an abstract beauty, featuring a repeating piano sequence interwoven with noise.
If you’re in the mood for some artistic, atmospheric drone this album should be next in your playlist.
Vienna dark rock outfit, The Great Gray Funk draws from doom, prog, and stoner influences to create a sound that is uniquely their own. Vocalist Yola Zitter shows remarkable range— from her PJ Harvey purrs in Vacuum Thoughts to soaring Myrkur venom in Faceless. There’s not a bad song on this album.
Many of the songs seem to revolve around finding ways to survive the world’s cruelty. Light & Grace is particularly eerie and bittersweet, with intricate instrumentation, brooding hooks, and a white-hot guitar solo that risks setting your hair ablaze.
Beacon is an even grimmer offering, with a creeping pace and melancholy melody ready to tempt any doom fan into the realm of dark rock. I, for one, have been ensnared.
If you’re into dark folk with a doomgazey sensibility, try out this solo project from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s a meticulous remaster of the band’s 2021 release by the same title. The benefits of the remaster are immediately evident. The lithium melody of don’t open till doomsday leaves me with goosebumps every time I listen to it. Tracks like unnatural habits nurture opposing concepts,simultaneously ethereal and intense. Not every note is perfect on this homegrown project, but it’s an inspired album that’s well worth your time. If the tag “nightmare pop” piques your interest, then this one’s for you.