Occult Vibe Haven (OVH)
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 […]