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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Rome-based, started off more instrumental, now fully locked into a stoner rock framework with vocals, but that description already sounds more stable than the record actually feels. What they’re doing still sits in stoner rock world, but it’s not the comfortable, nostalgic kind. There’s a rougher edge here, sometimes leaning into grunge weight, sometimes drifting […]
3+2 is one of those albums where nothing really jumps at you at first. It just starts and keeps going, and you kind of realize later you’ve been listening for a while. REPETITA IUVANT plays instrumental post-rock, but not the dramatic kind with big build-ups. More like repeating guitar ideas that slowly change while they’re […]
Azken Auzi hit harder this time. Right away, DEEP HELL crushes you. Thick guitars, bass and drums all locked together. You can feel the weight. Ludo’s voice crawls out of the mix, low, strained. Feels like the shadows of the debut are here, but twisted somehow. SK comes next. Weird, tense. Post-metal kind of feel. […]
OWLS OVER OAKS’ debut, O.O.O., hits like a slow-motion avalanche. Three tracks. No guitars. Just dual bass, deliberate drumming, and a darkness that hangs in the air long after the music stops. This is not for casual listening. You can’t put this on in the background. You don’t. You sit. You endure. From the first […]
I didn’t expect to get into a sludge album this year, but Axis Mundi really hit me. It’s slow, heavy, and feels like it’s pressing down on you. After five years, TARLUNG could have played it safe. Instead, the riffs are thick and jagged, the drums mostly slow but sometimes exploding out of nowhere. The […]