Occult Vibe Haven (OVH)
Instrumental post-metal can lose me fast if the riffs aren’t carrying enough weight, or if the atmospheric parts feel like they’re just filling time. The Sky Was Colored as Hammered Lead never really had that problem. The whole thing runs like one long piece more than eight separate tracks. I didn’t even catch where one […]
Green Desert Water have been around long enough that they no longer need to prove they can write a good stoner rock record. The real question with Eerie Meadows is whether the Spanish trio can keep their sound fresh while staying rooted in the same heavy-rock traditions that shaped their earlier work. The answer is […]
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 […]