Sleeping Giant finally put out a full album, and it doesn’t feel like something that needed a long setup or careful framing. Recorded in 2024 at Stúdíó Paradís, it sits firmly in stoner doom sludge way, slow and stubborn rather than dramatic. The band sounds like they already knew how they wanted to hit. Heavy, dragged out, groove-driven. The focus stays on weight, not polish.
Six tracks, all cut from the same thick stoner doom block, leaning into sludge and harsher metal when needed. Riffs sit longer than expected, the kind of slow churn you’d expect from doom rather than anything fast or sharp. Drums stay locked into grinding patterns, and when something quicker shows up it feels more like irritation than momentum. The songs don’t behave cleanly — parts repeat, bend slightly, then slide into something uglier without warning. Vocals shift around in the mix, sometimes upfront, sometimes buried, adding to the pressure rather than carrying hooks.
The record lives in a dark space thematically. Rot, ego, collapse, the usual doom-metal obsessions, but without theatre or posturing. No irony, no release valves. The production keeps everything rough and grounded, closer to sludge than polished stoner rock, heavy without turning to mush.
By the time it ends, there’s no sense of closure, just the weight still hanging there. The Beauty of Obliteration doesn’t try to redraw doom, sludge, or stoner metal, and it doesn’t sound like it wants to. For a debut, it sounds settled — like a band that already knows what it wants to drag down and keep there.
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Released by Octopus Rising on February 6th 2026
Music source for review – Grand Sounds PR
