Occult Vibe Haven (OVH)
The first few minutes just sort of drifted by, and I wasn’t sure where BANTORIAK were trying to take things. But somewhere along the way I stopped waiting for a big moment to happen and started enjoying the ride for what it was. This is one of those albums that works best when you let […]
Yawning Man have always sat in that strange corner between desert rock, psychedelic jam music and instrumental post-rock, but they’ve never really sounded locked into any of it. Pavement Ends keeps that same loose foundation, only this time it feels heavier and darker than usual. Not in a metallic way. The guitars still drift, the […]
Some albums hit a little harder when you know there won’t be another one after them. That’s pretty much how I felt listening to Perpetual Wasteland. Stonebirds called it a day after this record, and whether it was intentional or not, that sense of closure hangs over the whole thing. Not in a dramatic “final […]
The first thing I noticed about Something Wicked wasn’t the riffs. It was the voice. A lot of bands working somewhere between occult rock, doom and heavy rock end up treating vocals like another layer of atmosphere. Mandy Manala go in the opposite direction. Christa NedergĂĄrd sits right in the middle of everything, and after […]
When a band changes its name, I usually expect some kind of dramatic reinvention. That isn’t really the case here. Sacri Suoni may have emerged from the ashes of Stoned Monkey, but Time to Harvest doesn’t feel like a clean break from the past. It feels more like the next logical step – only heavier, […]
Some bands spend years trying to “expand the genre”. Sons Of Ghidorah sound more interested in plugging straight into a giant amplifier and seeing how much weight they can push through it before the walls crack. “Raining Fire” sits somewhere between stoner rock, doom, heavy psych and old-school heavy rock, but the album never feels […]
Abrams have been floating around the heavier end of the underground for a while now, and “Loon” feels like the kind of record made by a band that stopped worrying about fitting cleanly into one scene years ago. You can hear sludge, post-hardcore, noise rock, grunge, bits of metallic hardcore – sometimes all inside the […]
Mörkekraft is a Norwegian band doing that mix of heavy rock, stoner stuff, and some lighter psychedelic touches. They’re just shaping familiar ideas in their own way and seeing where it lands. I’ve seen the album mostly placed somewhere between stoner rock and melodic hard rock, with a bit of that older classic guitar-rock thinking […]
Black Lung still play that mix of stoner doom, heavy psych and fuzzy hard rock they’ve been building for years, but Forever Beyond feels tighter than the older records. The songs feel more planned out this time instead of just running on atmosphere and massive riffs alone. That honestly helps the album a lot. A […]
DROMOS are from North London, started back in 2019. This is their first full album after a couple of tracks they put out on Dry Cough last year. Coming out May 15th on Argonauta. Some of the guys have been in Grave Miasma and other underground bands, so they know what they’re doing with heavy […]