Occult Vibe Haven (OVH)
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 […]
I’ve been trying to describe what this album feels like, not what it “is,” because what it “is” depends on the day. First spin, I thought it was their most straightforward thing yet. Second spin, nope, it’s actually looser than the debut. Third spin, I stopped trying to categorize it at all. Maybe that’s the […]
I don’t know what’s in the water down there, but GOATFATHER sounds like they’ve been breathing exhaust fumes for breakfast again. Their third album, House of the Rising Smoke, comes out this October and, to be honest, it’s probably their most “them” record yet. If you’ve heard Monster Truck you’ll get the idea, but this […]
There’s a point where riffs stop sounding like you’re trying and start sounding like you just are. Solar Sons hit that somewhere along the line. You can hear it all over Altitude, their sixth record, tracked fast in some cold room called Nameless City Sound. Eight days. Probably smelled of coffee and warm valve amps. […]
You can tell right away BREATH aren’t trying to make “songs”. Brahman sounds like they’re summoning something – slow, old, and not entirely friendly, but not evil either. It’s that big middle space between calm and collapse. Everything feels stretched out and deliberate, like they’re chasing the space inside the sound, not the sound itself. […]
It’s been four years since Two of Swords, and Bentrees finally drop Silver Veins. Six tracks, no filler, no showing off – just that thick, hypnotic low-end fuzz they’ve been hammering since the early days. Recorded at Sonusville Studio in Siliqua, it sounds like it – earthy, not overproduced, just real instruments in a room, […]
Stone Machine Electric don’t play songs so much as drop you inside them. Faces is six slabs of slow-burn hypnosis, the kind of record that doesn’t hurry to prove a damn thing. These Texans have been circling the underground for years, and you can hear the road miles baked into every stretch of feedback and […]
The first note hits, and the room smells of damp wood and a faint electric hum. Faces creeps in slowly, sticky in the air, settling into corners before you even notice. Zombie Eater have spent years in Helsinki basements and German backrooms, and you can hear the floors sagging under the weight, the lights flickering, […]