EIGHT – JUPITERIAN Aphotic
Aphotic has what every fan of drone, doom, sludge, fuzz, heavy and everything of the sort wants and needs in a release. The Brazilian four-piece give us straining, decadent, and demanding vocals on the low-end of politeness. The harsh, precise, and forcefully significant droning of the guitars create a nearly complete sphere of influence over your brain and body. Severe, scrupulous drum work chains your instincts and senses together in a direct focus on what could easily be my favorite doom release of 2015. From the first slam of “Permanent Grey” to the closing cacophonous diminuendo of “Drag Me To My Grave,” it does nothing but relentlessly pummel you and reaffirm your belief in the truth of doom.
Read the full review HERE…
SEVEN – Kult Of The Wizard The White Wizard
Last night, I found what I think is the Best Occult Doom Release of 2015 by a band named KULT OF THE WIZARD. Their new album is entitled The White Wizard, and it is a never ending ride to Doom Valhalla, where the riffs shape-shift into magical beings! Mahle Roth’s vocals are bluesy plus strike the perfect balance between pain and power. I’m addicted to this band, because they have created a collection of songs that are classic. I have a job for you – press play and then share this link with your homies so that more people can join the KULT OF THE WIZARD. On my end, I’m committed to do everything in my power to make sure that this band is heard by as many people as I can turn them on to! Listening to their song “Black Moon,” I get chills, because it’s that damn good. In the over-saturated genre of Doom, KULT OF THE WIZARD have created their own lane…
Read the full Review HERE…
SIX – CHRCH Unanswered Hymns
CHRCH’s music, on the outside, is not hard to place on a map. This is fuzzed-out, feedback-drenched, dread-injected occult doom that will please fans of bands like Sleep, Electric Wizard, Windahnd, Cough, Burning Witch, Warhorse and Goatsnake. CHURCH’s highly toxic, grimy, sinister and crushing stoner-doom is something that is unmistakably iconic, and which appears immediately grand and recognizable as soon as you hit play on the twenty minute behemoth opening track “Dawning.” However, the initial bass drone that soon kicks in then makes a ton of alarms go off. Its sinister and threatening tone, and the way it pours into your ear ducts like cement, is something you can not underestimate or overlook. From then on, “Dawning” crawls all over the spectrum of doom like a beast caged, trying to break free from the abyss that is sucking it in. Lead singer Eva Holland’s clean vocals are just as haunting and gracious as you could imagine in a nightmare, at the end of which you are seeing your awakening to salvation. Then she alternates with Chris in some pretty disgusting and harrowing screams that drag you by the ankles back into the murk, as you scream and implore to be spared from a chasm of toothed shadows dragging you to them. Surreal and puzzling meadows of post-rock-ish minimalism can last upwards of five minutes in this beast, creating some pretty incredible and impenetrable style-changes, where some really memorable guitar soloing and clean vocal chants design smoke trails in the air as if you are trapped within your own dreams, in a room full of candles and you can not wake up. Then the RIFF drops to wake you up from the haze and hallucinating state you were set in – and then CHRCH pound the living shit out of you, beating the air out of your longs, riff after riff, till the end of the song, with a mercilessness and disgust that seems almost impossible to believe.
Read the full review HERE…
FIVE – WITH THE DEAD S/T
So, With The Dead are the result of what seems to be an obvious alchemical process. It only seems logical that such a band should, at some point in time, exist. Comprising of ex-Electric Wizard members Tim Bagshaw and Mark Greening (also founding members of Ramesses) and joined by Lee Dorian, legendary vocalist of Cathedral and Napalm Death, With The Dead seems to be now the focal point of the three musicians. With Ramesses currently on hold and Cathedral calling it quits in 2013, this trio was brought together in order to fill a certain void.
The guitars are simply massive in this release, laying waste from the moment they appear on “Crown of Burning Stars.” The amount of distortion results in a dirty and humongous characteristic tonality, with a fair amount of fuzziness also lurking underneath, as is the case with “The Cross.” There are even moments when that dirty aspect becomes quite astounding, as happens in “I Am Your Virus,” where you can almost picture the band digging up your grave while throwing the mud straight at you. Of similar attitude is “Screams From My Own Grave,” with the more exploding parts really causing aural damage, as the feedback roars and the huge drones are let loose upon the soundscapes of the track. And when you thought that you have experienced all the heaviness that With The Dead are able to conjure, you find yourself in front of the terrifying beast that is “Living With The Dead,” a true massive black hole where all light is lost.
Read the full review HERE…
FOUR – MONOLORD Vænir
MONOLORD’s toxic and sloth-like doom falls more on the stoner side of the spectrum, meaning they have huge psychedelic and Seventies influences slithering throughout their sound, thrust forward by massive waves of fuzz, feedback and static. The slow-cooking, swampy tar of tracks like “We Will Burn,” or “Died A Million Times” with it’s hollowed out and chanting vocals layered over a riverbed of fuzzed-out space rock guitars, is a clear example of this trait, and in these instances the band almost sounds like a clearer and less intoxicated version of Electric Wizard, or on the flip-side as an ultra-heavy and evil version of Hawkwind. While MONOLORD’s music is ceremonial and almost liturgical in its careful and masterful unraveling of colossal and timeless doom-riffs, there is also that inevitable and almost inseparable evil element in their music. The disembodied and mantra-like nasal vocal delivery has that unmistakeable mass-like or occult-like vibe to it, and as the riffs pound from underneath enveloping you in their toxic haze you start to have visions of sects, occult ceremonies and all kinds of weird and hallucinating rituals happening. In this sense, MONOLORD’s music truly is a cathedral of sound. A place where giant walls of sound and towers of feedback contain a conceptual ritual, a vision of liturgic power that can not be separated from the music containing it.
Read the full review HERE…
THREE – DOPETHRONE Hochelaga
The main feature of this album is, of course, the riffs – and the weight that they have in Hochelaga is inconceivable. Everything seems to be collapsing when the first notes of “Sludgekicker” come in, with the band then traveling through different modes of operation. The combination of the different genres is interesting, and yields heavy results each time around. The stoner infusion on songs such as “Chameleon Witch,” alongside the doom base of the track, is then replaced with the dirtier sludge sound of songs such as “Scum Fuck Blues” and “Vagabong,” resulting in a dark and trippy effect. The heavy groove that the band incorporates into these songs is just killer, squeezing that extra juice; especially in “Vagabong,” it feels like you are being trampled by a mammoth or something, while the sudden stops in “Scum Fuck Blues” only add more impact to the track.
Read the full review HERE…
TWO – PRIMITIVE MAN Home Is Where The Hatred Is
Their newest offering, which is put out by legendary label Relapse Records, is entitled Home Is Where The Hatred Is and is available February 17th. If there was ever a more accurate description of an album, this would be it. A four song EP that drags your corpse across a field of broken glass, razor wire and repressed memories over the course of thirty-one terrifying minutes. A substantial amount of cranial damage will almost certainly occur while listening to this release, as represented by the first track, “Loathe.” Primitive Man open up this cancerous offering with a blast of feedback and drums, while the guitars slowly build up in anticipation of decimating the very landscape we walk on. For the next eleven minutes, one is continually abused by their output, with fiendish vocals mocking all that profess to worship a divine being. What grabbed my attention the most was the use of chaotic blast beats through portions of the song. That being said, it seems that this band has a number of tricks up their sleeve and it shows instantly on this first song. A plodding, almost methodical torture is exacted throughout the rest of this song, and proves that this is a band capable of annihilating the very concept of what “heavy” is.
Read the full review HERE…
ONE – Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard Noeth Ac Anoeth
I get the distinct feeling that very few of those who stumble upon the boundless rumblings of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard will struggle to comprehend the unearthly plain of musical existence in which this Wrexham troupe reside. Hilariously unsubtle and genius moniker aside, the lashings of psychedelic space doom on display here more than lives up to the conjured images of said Bastard – presenting an astral projection of unfathomable proportions.
Entering with pensive guitar melodies and celestial palpitations, a female voice begins crooning into the ether, evoking transcendental ritualistic ceremonies and beckoning with kaleidoscopic hallucinations. The next twenty-five minutes is brashly filled with unrelenting, trance-inducing doom riff repetition that envelops the senses and enthralls with inescapable, down-tuned fervour. Every few minutes sees the band morphing from one colossal eruption to the next, but the alms to the doom gods never wavers. When the riffs truly kick in it is hardly unexpected, yet these moments are no less gratifying and once they arrive they set up camp and outstay their welcome with a middle finger raised to the unbelievers.
Read the full review HERE…
