stoner rock / metal

Earthshine is an album released in October 18, by Italian stoner rock group The Whirlings. A relatively concise musical effort — only thirty-eight minutes long —, the record has five tracks: 1) Vacuum; 2) Reverence; 3) #6; 4) Good For Health, Bad For Education; 5) Lost In Without; with a powerful musical vitality, a cohesive internal sonorous consistency, and a gracious ability to explore the genre on its more inhospitable layouts, Earthshine manages to be a very pleasant and magnificent experience. Despite the exceedingly conventional beginnings, the band soon manages to take a more genuine and authorial turn, and from the first track onwards, the album reveals itself as a magnificent musical journey, that all lovers of stoner rock will undoubtedly appreciate, with ardent enthusiasm. 

The vast majority of the rhythms are inadvertently cautious and slow; nevertheless, they are so majestically conceived, they overflow with such an organic consistency, that the exceedingly superb technical competence and attention to detail displayed by the band easily makes the listener fall in love with this album. But the qualities don't stop there. As if that were not enough,   the guitar lines and the general pace of the harmonies are so fantastically exceptional and rapturous, that its impossible not to be immediately attracted to the absurdly abrasive melodies that fluctuates above the horizon of the dense and delightful harmonies showcased by the band's creative and lurid style, that openly reveals the desire to conceive something entirely new, from the good old influences they all had absorbed as musicians. 

Sincerely, I couldn't find anything negative to be written about this magnificent album. With a powerfully afflictive, but at the same time moderate and restrained style — that never exaggerates nor repeats itself —, Earthshine reveals itself as a carefully conceived and wisely elaborated musical masterpiece, whose sensational degree of originality deserves to be praised by the underground. With a deeply sagacious creativity and a sober degree of audacity, that knows precisely where the genre needs improvement, The Whirlings certainly can be classified as a major act of contemporary stoner rock. Undoubtedly, if they continue to demonstrate this formidable level of boldness, sensibility and competence, they are destined to become undisputed references in the history of the genre. 

With a majestic degree of excellence that I personally haven't heard in the genre before, Earthshine, by The Whirlings — in its glorious entirety, from start to finish —, proves to be a spectacular, impeccable and unexpected album. While the band display the general strucuture and the ordinary elements of stoner rock, their rereading and personal rendering of the genre is absolutely extraordinary. With no homogeneity, no repetitive features, no obsolete techniques, no generic or formulaic passages, the majestic grandiosity of this fabulous album deserves to be recognized as a landmark in the history of the genre's development, as Earthshine definitely designs new melodic and stylistic possibilities for the underground music, with a refreshing, vivid and authentic creative nature, that heralds a future of splendor for stoner rock. 


Wagner

dark rock

Nothing new under those vast Scandinavian skies – yes! Nothing boring in the wide open spaces – yes! Nocturnalia are a good example that a mix of Rainbow, Deep Purple, the 69 Eyes combined with a singer who clearly likes Bruce Dickinson never gets boring. For we have heard those things so often before we can clearly identify the roots – always a great thing for every fan(atic) as he can display his knowledge. However, there is something else to that mix that lies beneath the obvious and that is some good and clever songwriting because we must remember – copying is one thing but taking lessons from idols is another. Nocturnalia definitely follow the second line and we can take singer Linus Ekermo as an example here: He knows his Bruce, he knows his Dio but he never dares to simply copy them, he adds little singular characteristics once in a while, for example in “Winter Hymn” when his (nearly) spoken word is a great atmospheric moment - “Frost be the sign of this lost ending year /  Darkness embrace me for winter draws near” words and phrases heard before but combined with a sound reminiscent of the wind of uilleann pipes and a second (at the beginning nearly inaudible) vocal line we are still drawn to it and keep on spinning “III Winter”. 

hard rock / classic rock

Wooden Earth (look at that band name – you already see the green smoke rising in the desert) are to release their new track “Fangs” on December 13th. The Dallas-based duo consisting of guitarist Devin Moreno and drummer/vocalist Griffin Thomas will release their debut full length next year and are currently touring their ….. off. No new witches’ brew in their mix of two similar genres, but their play with dynamics is definitely worth lending your ear if you like Red Fang’s ferociousness, QOTSA’s pop appeal and some scruffy vocals to accompany all of that. They throw in a riff that is really genre-like but their dynamics draws you in and the small kicks from the side in form of a sharp noisy lick keep you going just as much as the 60s style psychedelic organ in the background which keeps the atmosphere light and tight. Here you go, Stoner fans, you might have another band to follow! What a name anyway!

metalcore

My media player sometimes plays a trick on me and doesn’t enlist the tracks in the right order but reverses them, so that the last track is played first. It did that when I started listening to Moonreich’s recent EP Wormgod, and thus the first thing I heard was “Broken” and the first vocals I heard were “If you want control without any pain / How long will you suffer? / How long will you reign?” My mind racing, where had I, what did they, whom had they….  and then memory retrieved the wanted information – it’s a cover of a Depeche Mode-song! No, nothing worrisome about that cover but well, the rest is solid work. A lot of grindy-metalcore, blastbeats, solid screaming gutturals, some quick and harsh turns, a few moments reminiscent of Slipknot (supposedly a major influence) and some posty-swirling guitar loops. A solid Metalcore band doing some solid Post-Metal songs but being unable to hide their roots. A good band to start your summer festival day with, but well …if it wasn’t for that Depeche Mode-cover!

dub doom

Ever wondered what it would sound like if Godflesh emphasized the metal side a bit more and a bit dirtier? Less sterile and less dubby? With a bit less verve and some more doomy gloom? Then you might find yourself drawn to Blackwood, an electro-doom-metal-project headed by Italian artist and composer Eraldo Bernocchi who – via Subsound Records has just released his new EP “Of Flies” with the help of vocalist Emilia Moncayo and a lot of samples, for example the urgent screams “Conductor we have a problem! Press emergency!” taken from a YouTube-video filmed a few years ago, when a man ran around in an American subway screaming these words all the time. The songs are like a descent into the hell of the human psyche, one does not want to listen because of the grittiness of the songs but it it somehow impossible to stop because there might be another even more sensational sound or sample or scream just around the corner of this dirty wall of sound. And just before the finger hits the button he calms it down again and then surrounds the ears with some soothing parts and ethereal moments. But the dirt is always just one step away. A great introduction into a genre some people might never have imagined. Or never wanted to imagine. 

dark ambient / edm / house

“Always on my mind”. Elvis. His late years. A classic. Always recognizable. Always? No, not as in always always, because as Ghostboy shows with his version, starting out like a desert slo-mo-acoustic guitar version then turning into slow ambient song, even a song we have all heard a trillion times can be hard to recognize even though he sticks to the original lyrics. This song was my reason to listen to the new EP by Ghostboy released on and for Halloween and thus aptly titled “Disgusting”. Four songs revolving around the themes lost love, death, loneliness and ghosts are presented here by the electronica artist, who combines burbling dream-pop with dark electronica parts or classical house elements and sometimes garners them with an interesting detail, like the aforementioned acoustic guitar. The only fault in the EP: The cover doesn’t totally fit in with the others, even though it is quite an original track, but its lyrical mood is so different and furthermore because of said western-intro. Maybe he should choose a real Halloween classic for such a themed release – my suggestion: “The Boy with the Arab Strap”. Otherwise, it becomes clear where Ghostboy comes from and where he’s headed as he stays immensely authentic. 

Thorsten

psychedelic rock / stoner rock / hard rock

Sonic Cure is an album to be released in the end of the month, November 29, by Polder Records, with pre-orders to start on November 15. Work of veteran Belgian psychedelic/stoner/hard rock band Wheel of Smoke, Sonic Cure is the most recent release of this group, that has been around for fourteen years now, having released previously the albums In Sense, in 2011, Signs of Saturn, in 2013, Mindless Mass, in 2016, and the EP Enter The Pyramid, in 2015. With only five tracks — Sonic Cure, Brainshaker, Beamed, On a Wave and Electric I —, this album displays a sonorous vigour and a genuine enthusiasm from the very beginning, that is amazingly pungent, legendary and remarkable. With tremendously hallucinating guitar lines, cohesive and strong harmonies, and gloriously pulsating seventies psychedelic rock vibes, Sonic Cure has an authentically fit retro atmosphere, that subsidizes its splendorous, dense and gracefully dynamic rhythmic features, for the full extent of this amazingly fabulous album.

With a remarkable musical style, that completes on the vicinities of its marvelous genuine creativity the sonorous grandiosity of its wonderfully vivid and abrasive style, the density and the practical uneasiness displayed in the sound doesn't stand as a mere copy of seventies rock 'n' roll bands, on the contrary; the group departs from a cohesive conjuncture of eclectic influences, to compose in a mosaic of complex arrangements a vast diagram of deeply resonating and colorful authorial melodies. With wonderful harmonies — whose extensive creative sensibilities defies the consistency of its own organic structure —, Sonic Cure, in its entirety, easily reveals itself as the perfect combination between appreciation of tradition and original conception of sound. 

With gracefully pungent and colorful guitar solos, that expand the tempestuous grace of its renitent restlessness over the salutary density of its vastly flexible and unorthodox rhythmic proficiency, each track has majestically unique peculiarities, distinct beauty, splendid elegance, powerfully consistent and diligent qualities, that underscores the band's huge, impeccable creative potential. The formidable heterogeneity of the band — which can be surprisingly flexible, without ever losing its characteristic sonorous identity — is a deeply strong musical feature, that gives to their style an unpredictable sensibility, whose undisputed possibilities injects ostentatious vigor into the group's virtuous harmonies. 

A formidable, unique, sensationally graceful state of the art work, Sonic Cure definitely is one of the most genuine, remarkable and perfect albuns ever released in the contemporary history of retro-styled, seventies inspired hard rock. Displaying not only superb technical elegance, but also a virtuous creative sensibility — as well as a fantastic electrical audacity, an originally discreet, but vivacious and persistent restlessness —, and a truly genuine desire to break boundaries, Sonic Cure is a concise, but practically perfect work of modern rock, destined to establish new musical standards for all the other bands in the genre, as soon as the album is released.  


Wagner

doom metal / stoner rock

Lord of the New Depression is an album released by American doom metal / stoner rock band Restless Spirit. A relatively concise effort, the record is forty minutes long, and has nine tracks: 1) Under Hellish Moon and Wailing Sky; 2) Less Than Human; 3) Lord of the New Depression; 4) Dominion; 5) 13 Devils; 6) Deep Fathom Hours; 7) Miserable Existence / Unrest; 8) Ripped From Me; 9) Young Graves; a very interesting record, with expressively somber, but cohesive harmonies, Lord of the New Depression departs from the ordinary elements of stoner rock, but the band successfully manages to conceive something more nefarious and sinister with the addition of dynamic doom metal components into their music. 

Despite their more macabre and sometimes lugubrious musical style, the sound of Restless Spirit has an abundant, horizontal and resonant vigor, that definitely incorporates the restless essence of their creative nature. With melodies that occasionally becomes stagnant, but concomitantly dehydrates its dispersive cosmogony over the shadows of its audacious dimensional tonalities, the abrasive strength of the group's imperiously aggressive sonorous virtuosity displays a dark vitality that — in the correct corner of its imponderable volatility — gradually conceives underneath the sensibilities of its expansive density a modest degree of experimentalism, whose diligently authorial creative propensities showcases a furious pattern, that unfortunately exasperates the possibilities of its remarkable dissolute layout within its own rhythmic peripheries. 

While Restless Spirit becomes gradually resented by the invisible restrictions of its own sonorous limitations, the band really works well within its modest and somewhat predictable structural conjuncture. As the sound becomes more homogeneous, the creative possibilities also decrease, but the cohesiveness of the style — to a certain extent — manages to preserve a hyperbolic restlessness into the essence of the music, that keeps the integrity and the exceptional consistence heard throughout the album.

So, while Lord of the New Depression is not a fantastic album, it manages to be a satisfying work, that reveals a band that displays an exceptional degree of technical excellence. Despite the fact that the band sounds too conventional for the most part, they occasionally unveil an audacious musical outlook, that can become in the future the prospective element for a more original and genuine work. But definitely, they are in a path of creative evolution, with potential to achieve promising results as their creative journey goes forward. 


Wagner

stoner rock

State of Mind is an album released by Canadian stoner rock band Black Sheep, at the end of June. Relatively concise, the record has little more than thirty-six minutes, and has seven tracks: 1) Is It You; 2) Time Is Mine; 3) Under The Crimson Tide; 4) On The Highway; 5) Until The Shadow Come Again; 6) I'll Find You; 7) Wasted Love; with furious and expansive, but gracious musical hyperboles, and a striking resonant sound, whose profoundly dense, dynamic and diluted tonalities gradually penetrates into increasingly pragmatic, diffusive and cohesive layers of sound, the style displayed by Black Sheep on this album is a glorious and distinctive conjuncture of creative, restless and magnificent authorial compositions, that destilates with mordacity and uneasiness a singular and highly expressive work, with potential to effectively establish superior standards to the genre. 

With a cohesive and extensive musical unity, State of Mind is as gracefully concise as it is powerfully remarkable. Capturing an atmosphere of dispersive, but concomitantly explosive sonorous diligence, the band astutely conceives a style so bright, refined and elegant that — despite the fact that departs from the general commonplaces of the genre — they manage to fully develop their creative sensibilities to overcome structural limitations, sucessfully sculpting splendid harmonies in flexible, expansive, colorful and vivid tonalities.  

With an audacious and passionate sensitive disposition, that realigns the sound's most abrasive and organic elements into a more dissolute musical diagram, State of Mind manages to display highly heterogeneous melodies, while at the same time the signature style of the band can be perceived as distinctly recognizable and familiar. Exhibiting a fantastic set of qualities that undoubtedly qualifies Black Sheep as expressively singular, State of Mind reveals a band that unquestionably stands out as an amazingly peculiar act within the genre, displaying easily a degree of lucidity, sensibility and technical competence, that perfectly converges to a horizon of gracefully impeccable, original and innovative standards.   

Masterfully abrasive, dynamic and powerfully genuine, State of Mind is a highly vigorous, disruptive and delightful album, that came to introduce more proverbial and genuine elements to the genre. With a degree of sensibility that knows how to extract precisely the most gracious, unpredictable and tenacious components within a musical framework — with the aim to conceive a tempestuous palace of desolation made of hazardous symphonies, strong enough to survive a succession of collisions with the most brutal features of the human nature —, Black Sheep rises as a monumental axis of horizontal creativity and splendor, willing to show to audiences a more redemptive, consistent and veracious way to make music. 


Wagner

stoner rock

Covern Of The Snake is an album released on July 12, by Australian stoner rock band Arrowhead. Almost forty minutes long, the record has eight tracks: 1) Coven Of The Snake; 2) All Seeing Eye; 3) Ceremony Of The Skull; 4) Ghost Ship; 5) Root Of Evil; 6) Dopanaught; 7) March Of The Reptiles; 8) Golden Thunderhawk; with powerful and deeply energetic harmonies, this album displays abundantly the best qualities of the genre. With tempestuous and abrasive guitar lines, amazingly crafted melodies, playfully arid, but sober vocals and an exceedingly brutal, though lucid and perfectly distinct musical style, Arrowhead definitely gives a new, imponderable and more genuine vitality to stoner rock with this splendid work, whose strength can inspire underground acts to incorporate more authentic and original virtues into its artistic aspirations. 

Despite the fact that the band departs from the general and ordinary features of the genre, they are creative and audacious enough to reinvigorate with a very authorial sonorous disposition all the common standards of stoner rock. With a gracefully restrained — but at the same time vigorous and robust musical technique —, the band goes a long way in meticulously exploring fearless sound possibilities, though they are competent enough to design a very singular style, never misrepresenting the genre or disfiguring its harmonious layout.

With a ferocious and disturbing, but exceedingly pleasant and marvelous sound that definitely has all the necessary qualities to please stoner enthusiasts, Coven Of The Snake reveals a wonderful surprise to the audience in one track after another, displaying a sagacious degree of musical proficiency, that unquestionably makes Arrowhead the fundamental axis for a more original and innovative development of the genre. With the glorious ability to conceive highly intelligent, dynamic and vivacious atmospheres, the musical style shown by this work exhibits a profoundly skilled, mature and sensational degree of artistry, that not only deserves to be fully appreciated, but also has to be assimilated with a pattern of sensibilities that is correctly aligned with its ever expansive diagram of creative splendor. 

With a fantastic and spectacular sound, that offers to the audience the marvelous opportunity to be fully delighted with a high quality stoner rock, this sensational  album is an exceptional and majestic work of art, whose formidable level of creative originality and sound fidelity will make the band exponents of the scene, at least in their home country. An impeccable record that has what it takes to propose a serious and constructive revolution in the genre — for the sake of its refinement —,  Coven Of The Snake is not just a triumph of Arrowhead, but of all those people who are tremendously passionate about this wild and amazing genre, that is stoner rock.



Wagner

psychedelic / stoner rock

Let me ask you a question. Are you a fan of Hawkwind? or bands playing spaced out fuzz from a galactic stage in the middle of the cosmic hyperverse? Or maybe spacey stoner rock that sounds like it's been dug up from the middle of the Nevada Desert and eaten way too much peyote? If you answered yes to any of those questions then gather round friends as I have a new album to introduce you to in the form of Trondheim natives Dune Sea and their self titled album. 

The first place you think of when you mention fuzzy space rock or desert/stoner rock may not be Norway but these guys are looking to change that. They are well schooled in the art of the heavily distorted groovy bass heavy sound we know and love. They have tried to sprinkle a bit of originality in there in the form of some bluesier sounds but make no mistake, this album is balls to the wall space/stoner rock worship.

Opener Pentobarbitol And Ethanol (yeah that one just rolls off the tongue doesn't it!) shows you just what to expect from the album. It's bass driven spaced out bliss and does not disappoint. The whole album continues on exactly as you would expect, indeed if there is one criticism one can point at this is that it's not very original, but then again, why try when imitation is the best form of flattery. The track Morphine does hint at more rockier inclinations but it is a mear toe-dip in the grand scheme of things and it does open out into a wonderful progressive section towards the end which I would have liked to see expanded upon. The song Green has a great blues tinged riff and is dripping with reverb drenched spacey goodness, the rhythm section is particularly impressive as it bounces and grooves along and is a personal highlight from the album. 

So then, fans of space rock or stoner rock will find much to like here and is well worth your time, however, if you are not keen on either of these styles then move along as this album will do nothing to change your mind. 

​Simon

stoner rock

Heliosphere is an album released on July 7, by Dutch stoner rock band Mantra Machine. A very interesting and exceedingly cohesive work, the record features marvelous guitar lines, interlaced with wonderfully introspective harmonies, that definitely establishes a punctual and dense alignment between rhythm and melody. With a restrained and salutary sensibility, that easily overcomes the boundaries of its intuitive, but restless creativity, Heliosphere impresses from the very beginning. Despite the relatively simple and ordinary musical structure — that one could mistakenly assume as a derisive limitation —, Mantra Machine works from the basic components of stoner rock, expanding them in a very discreet, but expressive atmosphere. 

Forty-three minutes long, the record has four very extensive tracks: 1)Hydrogen; 2)Atmos; 3)Delta-v; 4)Heliosphere; with a signature sound that definitely elevates their musical aspirations to a moderate, but also colorful harmonious background, the style of Mantra Machine is ostensibly serene and captivating, although displays with a sober degree of sophistication a graceful and elegant dynamism, that showcases an astute and original creative restlessness, whose fluidity is converted to a pure, almost delusional sensitive experience.

Despite some minor restrictions — as the sound can be perceived as generic at times — the overall style displayed by Mantra Machine on this album is gracefully cohesive, masterfully attractive and diffusively melancholic, for the most part. With a sensational musical disposition that inadvertently challenges the genre, while at the same time vehemently respects its stylistic boundaries, Heliosphere can be considered a refined, genuine and superbly tenacious work of art, which is astoundingly marvelous all the way through. With a highly effective and creative synergy, that circulates over the axis of its own sonorous strength, the vigorous energy, exhibited by the group on this fabulous record with such an imponderable vitality, is a marvelously virtuous accomplishment, that not only showcases their formidable potential, but also highlights them as an inevitable rising act, in the worldwide contemporary scene of the genre. 

With a vigorous creative lucidity, and a masterful musical tenacity — whose sound expands from the interior realm of its introspective passionate ternderness —, Heliosphere reveals itself a gracefully complete and astounding record, that will make all enthusiats of the genre celebrate widely the immensely beautiful, simple, poetic, somber and delightful musical experience propitiated by this wonderful work of art. 



Wagner

noise / dark ambient / experimental

bandcamp

electronic

dSound In Silence

progressive / metal / black metal

heavy metal / thrash metal

downtempo / electronic / post rock / shoegaze

facebook

psychedelic / doom

sludge / black metal

ambient / modern classical / experimental

bandcamp

drone / doom / noise / experimental

ambient / electronic

noise rock

stoner rock / grunge / alternative rock

facebook

​Serge

hard rock / stoner rock

Valley of Shadows is an album released in 17 May, by American psychedelic stoner/ sludge metal band Duel, from Austin, Texas. With a furious, though vivaciously dynamic, dense and voracious sound, that encapsulates energetic and straight to the point guitar lines that revolves around their acid diagram of lancinating full throttle melodies, Duel showcases on this album a graciously aggrandizing tale of old school sonorous metabolism – truly committed to its wild and savage origins – that heavily dictates the powerful coordinates of a magnet of rhythmic legendary harmonies that burst into flames in a sonic speed, for the glory of rock’n’roll and the total amazement of the audience.      

A relatively concise album, Valley of Shadows is thirty seven minutes long, and has eight tracks: 1) Black Magic Summer; 2) Red Moon Forming; 3) Drifting Alone; 4) Strike and Disappear; 5) Broken Mirror; 6) Tyrant on the Throne; 7) I Feel No Pain; 8) The Bleeding Heart; exceedingly marvelous all the way through, the album is a genuine demonstration of creative musical vivacity, that recognizes no boundaries to the landscape of its restless, audacious and sensitive musical horizon. With the gracious atmosphere of a hazardous and scalding desert that is about to melt everything on its way, the furious, but uplifting sound of Duel definitely lives on the groundbreaking edge proposed by the mordacity of its pungent style.    

With a heavy sound whose tempestuous, but groovy melodies puts the band in a very particular category of hard rock, the expansive and vibrant elements that are abundant in the periphery as well as in the main nucleus of the band’s creative diagram conceives a very balanced sound, that is never predictable or monotonous. The synergy displayed by the ostensibly solid virtues that are highlighted in their complex sound arrangements exposes a very dense and methodic musical alignment, that dilapidates in a concentrated panorama of extraordinary artistic grace a sensational conjuncture of qualities, that are rarely combined in such a vivacious manner.

An almost impeccable album, that displays a genuine style conceived in very exceptional and singular musical perspectives, Valley of Shadows reveals itself to be a very elegant and original work, with no artistic nor technical deficiencies whatsoever. A greatly conceived and executed work, Duel deserves to be seen as a fundamental group in the psychedelic hard rock underground scene, as they are ready to take, to shake and to reinvent the genre, with the aim to create something extraordinarily exciting and authentic, as only a few other bands have the abilities to do so, with the same amount of competence and professionalism. 


Wagner