sludge / stoner metal / hardcore

A few days ago, I had a weird dream. It took place in ancient Egypt, but it was different. In my dreams, the Egyptians had discovered the power of sound. Instead of gigantic walls, they kept enemies at bay with massive speakers, blasting out a harsh, pounding noise. Whenever an enemy tribe would approach, the sheer power of the sound would just blew them back to where they came from. The bouldering noise was too much for their puny little bodies to bear. Heads exploded and the ones that got away had become deaf for the rest of their lives.

I don't think it's a coincidence that this dream appeared the night after I first listened to this album by Norwegian steamroller Jagged Vision. With their blend of stoner metal, thrash metal and hardcore, these guys easily blast through walls, and probably your sanity too. From opener 'Betrayal' to closer 'Palehorse', this album is an intense assault on your eardrums. That opener is one brutal mothersludger too if you ask me, drenched in thrash metal riffs and with the energy of a supernova.

The level of aggression is extreme, the riffs and pounding drums seem to come from everywhere while the harsh, brutal vocals bash you down. 'I Am Death' even takes things a little further, borrowing elements from the black metal scene. Perhaps that is why that song is my favorite one on this album. 'Feeble Souls' is another mindboggling piece of work, something between Kylesa, Mastodon and even Arch Enemy.

I know, this is not death metal, but believe me, young death metal fans might piss their pants in sheer distress when they listen to this album. It's aggressive and brutal enough to compete with that scene. Others will quickly start banging their heads to powerhouses like 'Seven Seals' and 'Forlorn'. I can easily see this music cause moshpits, stage divers and crowdsurfers everywhere. So yes, if you like beat-down music, this surely is your thing.


​Serge
  

stoner rock

Stonerror is an album by the eponymous Polish band, that describes their sound as “psychedelic stonerpunk”, released on February 16. Only thirty four minutes long, the album has eight tracks: Red Tank, Misbegotten, The Wolf, Los Hermanos, God's Guns, The Ride, Sierra Morena and Blues for the Red Sea. With an interesting vibe, crude but delirious guitars, and a very cohesive sound, Stonerror is a charming album. With an eccentric tranquility, its mesmerizing and virtuous sound is full of infuriating components, that gives to their style a special infusion, correctly efficient on its translucent incorporation of the most genuine essence of a true stoner rock, albeit with more candid and naïve aspirations.

Although the songs are very short, they seem to have an exacerbated and highly concentrated energy, despite calmer elements. In some moments, you can’t avoid being contaminated by a terrible sense of monotony, but even their slow passages are arbitrarily interesting. I can’t say I have found this album to be a masterpiece, but Stonerror have an essence of its own, that captures the real reflex of a true musical proposal. 

I really have a problem with their style, which sometime is more ecstatic than usual stoner rock bands. But since they effectively introduce some psychedelic components into their sound as well, I think you can positively say that they are in the right path for the consolidation of their own style. And they do this consciously aware of their versatility, competence and creativity. The amazingly powerful and dissonant guitar lines easily displayed seem to be the strongest element of their music.  

In my personal opinion, enthusiasts of stoner rock will really appreciate this album. Following the tradition of the genre, but not too closely, they really known how to work on the development of a singular style, staying true to the precepts of the genre at the same time. Technically, they are simply marvelous, although very simple. The instruments are splendidly well played, and the production values are above average. In the end, Stonerror manages to be a good album. But somehow I feel they really have potential to expand their musical boundaries, going far beyond the results achieved on this album. 


Wagner

stoner rock

Disruption is an album released by German stoner rock group Kalamata, released on March 1. Forty two minutes long, the album has only six tracks: MY, ERECTION, SHOWS, ME, THE and DIRECTION. Yes, you have read it right. The title songs form a very awkward sentence: “My Erection Shows Me The Direction”. Very funny, creative and original, ha! I think of why any band haven’t done this before (there is the possibility, perhaps I just haven’t found). With a calmer and very methodic style, Disruption is an interesting album, with vague songs, an intelligent sonorous layer and a detailed synergy flowing between the musical instruments.

Although the album is far from being considered a masterpiece, it has a very intriguing and appreciative set of qualities. The fact that the songs have extremely intense and slow melodies may inflict you a very tedious feeling, but even then it’s possible to fully appreciate what all these tracks have to offer. The guitar lines have a brilliant, serene and calm intricacy, that unveil beyond the perceptions an astounding universe that deciphers in detail the possibilities of the rhythm, and I think that this is probably the strongest quality of the album. The dynamic energy that abundantly resurfaces from the convergence of the instruments over the apex of the rhythm is a lucid point of strength as well.

The technical skills of the musicians are another point of interest, and the production values displayed by the album deserve a meritorious competent note. Some beautiful lines of guitar are exceedingly captivating, and the general slow work that distils harmonies in a very expressive length is a major point of distinction for the band. 

Disruption reveals itself to be a very good and exceptional album, although in its own terms. Despite some limitations, the record does reveal a great amount of authentic creativity, and a vast degree of talent extremely uncommon to find. I do think that Kalamata does have an amazing, solid and promising future in the underground. They have potential, a serious proposal, and a very genuine sensibility. They certainly have everything in their power to be prominently high, in their chosen genre of music.    


Wagner

industrial metal

metal / hardcore

stoner rock / psychedelic

post rock / math rock / progressive rock

alternative rock / hard rock

facebook

electronic / trip hop

post rock / electronic

stoner rock

metal

hardcore / black metal

death metal

dark folk / neofolk

Serge

stoner rock

bandcamp

Dead Hippie’s Revolution is an album by Greek stoner rock group Universal Hippies, released on February 18. Almost forty minutes long, the record has eight tracks: Redemption day, Homo sapiens, Mariner's dream, Universal hippie, Mountain, Holy slave, Matala and Reincarnation. A very incredible record, a little dry, but with ostensibly beautiful and functional melodies, and very detailed and captivating guitar lines, Dead Hippie’s Revolution is the ultimate stoner rock album. With an interesting level of originality, lucid, free-flowing and masterly created, this is undoubtedly a major record, that has everything to please the enthusiasts of the genre, in each and every possible aspect.

Never tedious or monotonous, the calmer, solid, powerful and vivacious guitar lines evidently are the stronger aspect of the work. Nonetheless, all other instruments closely follow the poetic and gracious harmonies perfectly delineated by these delightful strings, that summarily rearranges in a very acid, but at the same time profoundly genuine sonorous narrative, the greatness of a creativity that really satisfy anyone’s appetite for excellent music.

The serene pace of the record has a very therapeutic element. Amazingly calibrated, you feel yourself at the height of some moments transported to another dimension, where you can listen to the serene soul that for so long has been lost in the hidden spheres of your heart. A marvelous instrumental album, that departs from a graceful synergy between mind, soul, sound and rhythm, the perfect convergence of musical elements testify the powerful capacities of a creativity of a band that knows no limits. 

With a genuine intensity and a restless serenity amazingly combined to generate the sound of a new formula for the creation of a true, authentic and wonderful style of rock’n’roll, the sound of this album is so astoundingly impeccable, that you can literally feel the good old spirit of wild rock deeply inserted into the transcending, crude, rude and abrasive vibe transmitted by the ravenous guitars of the songs, flowing directly into your veins, and reviving everything that you thought had died with the good old school groups of the seventies.         

Dead Hippie’s Revolution is a formidable album. A milestone into the history of stoner rock, that will certainly leave its trademark in the sphere of the underground scene. A marvelous product of the astounding regional scene that is abundantly flourishing in Greece – the place upon which the most amazing bands of the genre are coming from – Universal Hippies came as another excellent surprise. And I hope they came to stay. Evidently, such a wonderful group has everything in their power to leave their style deeply engraved into the genre.  


Wagner

stoner rock

Wayfarer is an album by Finnish stoner rock group Void Cruiser, released on February 27. Almost forty six minutes long, the record has seven tracks: A Day On Which No Man Was Born, I Didn't Lie But I Know Now That I Should Have, As We Speak, Madonnas And Whores, Seven Years Late, All Over Nowhere and Maailman Kallein Kaupunki. A very beautiful, melodic and methodic stoner album, Wayfarer has captivating harmonies and very intense rhythms, with almost ethereal and dense vocals, upon which all musical elements are suspended, with the aim to promote a full convergence between classical components of vintage rock, and the amazingly personal, serene and sincere singular style of the group. 

With a surprising style, that departs from the common elements of the genre, Wayfarer is an album that has slow, but very abrasive and intrusive melodies, sagacious, but unscrupulous exonerating rhythms, and very distinct patterns, that subtlety isolates the more metaphysical aspects of their music, to elaborately create with them very protuberating and precious tonalities of sound, which gives to their music amazingly colorful and intense peculiarities.

Despite following in several aspects the more traditional wave of the genre, Void Cruiser reveals itself all the way through as a very audacious and creative band. Marvelously introducing into their music a splendidly vivacious impulse, that energizes their sound with a very cosmic sincerity, Wayfarer, although has several longer tracks, has so much life on the monumental axis of its formidable notes, that you feel marvelously captivated while listening to this great and astonishing record.

Although you feel inevitably bored at the height of some glorious moments – eventually you fall under the impression that several musical passages, indeed, present little rhythmic variations – the record doesn’t lose its power and intrinsic majesty. With a very genuine understanding of the genre, and the fabulous development of a singular style, Void Cruiser has presented to us on their most recent album, Wayfarer, a very lucid, exponential, phenomenal and outstanding album. With an exceptional musicality, that evidently has infused the best traditional elements of wild acid rock with the most wonderfully progressive contemporaneous precepts of the genre, Void Cruiser displays a magnificent style, that has evolved and matured to be fully autonomous, and certainly deserves to be considered and recognized as one of the leading acts of their genre, in their home country.  


Wagner

stoner rock

The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues is an album by KYUSS frontman John Garcia, released on late January by Napalm Records. Almost forty six minutes, the record has eleven tracks, being them Kylie, Green Machine, Give Me 250ml, The Hollingsworth Session, Space Cadet, Gardenia, El Rodeo, Argleben II, Court Order, The BLVD (Live) and Give Me 250ml (Live). A pretty much acoustic stoner rock album, The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues is a very powerful and energetic work, filled with twisting, emotional and surprising rhythms. Exceedingly exceptional, several tracks are astounding and ferocious pieces of artistry, amazingly created and beautifully delineated, with very singular, delicate and sensible sonorous appointments.

The album is not just formidable, but incredibly executed. The songs seems to be the creation of a very delusional artist out of this world, and the guitar lines are spirally contracted to breath over a planetary discussion of sonorous cohesion. With a poetic vibration that standardizes overtly cleansed spiritual harmonies, the melodies are so genuinely stricken that you feel comfortable listening to them all the way through, as they seem to know the proper way to your heart, in an unforgivingly right pathway to the emotional staircase of an unbound elemental collision. 

With small elements stolen from smooth, wild and southern rock, The Coyote Who Spoke in Tongues is a major achievement in technical, spiritual and artistic aspects. With beautifully consecrated tracks, the record alternates between mood, emotional and elemental songs, and more unpredictable, encircled and harmonically conscripted ones, almost ballad driven, but always with a very desert rock feature densely impregnated into it. Although I haven’t found the album to be a masterpiece, it certainly gets close to it. Filled with a powerful energy – even in calmer songs – from the beginning to the end, The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues is a major record, that has all the chances to elevate John Garcia to the status of a legend, no doubt about that. 

With colorful guitar lines, vigorous and precise rhythms, a major sense of breakable and twisting functional notes, a superbly wild rock mood and sensible walls of melodic superiority, this album certainly can be regarded as a trademark of the genre. Precise, beautiful, aggrandizing, intuitive, genuine and very honest, The Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues aggregates a major set of elements into the genre, reworking in a very audacious new platform the very good, elemental and old components of traditional southern, wild and desert rock, giving us a major album as a final result. 


Wagner

stoner / doom / death metal

I have to admit, the death metal scene doesn't thrill me as much as it used to. There was a time when I devoured albums by Entombed, Dismember, Death, Amorphis and so on. Yet, in recent years, the genre seems to slip through my fingers. At first, I thought that that was age related. I'm just getting older and thus more interested in slow, calmer music. Yet, that doesn't seem to be the cause of my growing disinterest in the genre. The main problem seems to be a lack of originality. Many bands seem to fear trying new things, which results in uniformity. 

Enter Finnish quartet Altar Of Betelgeuze and their green smoke filled approach to the genre. Their new album 'Among The Ruins' is saving the genre for me, blending the harsh and abrasive nature of death metal with the monolithic riff capacity of doom and stoner rock. As if that is not varied enough, they throw in some clean vocals and even some psychedelic guitar solos. It's not often that bands like Black Sabbath & Electric Wizard come to mind while listening to a death metal album, but it sure is pretty damn bloody awesome.

Although opener 'The Offering' is a strong and immersive piece of music, follower 'Sledge Of Stones' is an absolute masterpiece. Somehow, Altar Of Betelgeuze managed to add the groove of bands like Entombed and Dismember to the thick sound of the bands I mentioned in the previous paragraph. At some point even Queens Of The Stone Age come to mind, along with some of their stoner rock colleagues. 'New Dawn' is another favorite, but more a vintage doom metal track than a death metal tune.

Another absolute highlight its 'Absence Of Light', a slow but brutal steamroller of a song, one that will have you on your knees in no time. There is a tiny bit Amorphis in here, enhanced with all of the above. Obviously, the majority of metal fans will classify this album as doom metal and I can't disagree with that. The overall tempo is quite slow. The riffs are almost touchable. The clean vocals remind me of the early days of the doom genre.

Basically, perhaps you can simplify classification by saying that this is "Conan with grunts" but that would be too easy. Fact remains that this is a well-written, well-thought-out and original album that definitely deserves a spot in your collection. So who to recommend it to? Well, doom fans of course. They will adore this thing, no doubt about that. Death metal fans will have to open their mind a bit, but once bitten, Altar Of Betelgeuze could easily become your favorites.


Serge
​

stoner rock / noise rock / psychedelic

Is that a light bulb shoved up someone's private parts? Did Greek stoner rockers Arrakis invent a way to "enlighten" a newborn or are they just a bunch of sadists? Maybe it's just photoshop and did nobody get hurt during the design process, I certainly hope so. But let's not divagate about the cover art, because the first track on this album will probably hurt you enough already, and with that I'm talking about your neck muscles.

Take Karma To Burn, Monkey 3 and My Sleeping Karma, throw them into a blender with Melvins and Buzzov•en and out comes opener 'Plexus', one of the heaviest and  most energetic pieces of psychedelic stoner rock you can imagine. The rest of the album seems to tone down a little but but Arrakis never lose their trance-inducing dynamics. 'Electricon', the track, will have you on a trip through space in no time.

Although there are only five tracks, all instrumental by the way, this album carries plenty of fingerlicking riffs, hypnotic jams and high-octane drums. 'Loot' is a massive sludge-induced piece of music, designed to pierce your eardrums, so be warned. I'll leave the other two tracks up to you, dear reader. You'll be amamzed at the amount of energy coming from this Greek trio. Stoner rock to bang your head to in space, what else could you want?


​Serge

alternative / stoner / grunge

Working for Merchants Of Air must have been one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life, although I cannot say that it's a real job, unfortunately. However, I get to do two of my favorite things in the world: discover new music and write stuff. The only thing I don't like it, is finding all those genres. Quite frankly, I don't really care if it's stoner rock, downtempo electronics, black metal, ambient or drum & bass. For me personally, there are only two genres: good music and annoying music. That's how I categorize my collection. The good ones are on the shelf, the annoying ones usually remain in the local record shops.

That leads me to French rockers 7 Weeks and their latest full-length 'A Farewell To Dawn'. They too narrowed the genre-search down and eventually tagged their own music "massive rock". In that, these guys are one hundred percent correct. This is a massive rock album, regardless of influences. They simply don't care and neither do I. I can tell you that this album is an excellent amalgamation of stoner rock, grunge, alternative rock, arena rock, progressive rock and metal and that would be absolutely true. But most of all, I'd like to say that this thing rocks!

It already begins on opener 'King In The Mud', a song that immediately sets the tone. With mid-tempo rock music and excellent songwriting skills, this songs quickly becomes an immersive whirlpool of guitars, drums and strong vocals. From there, the album seems to continue on that path. The songs are solid, although they don't all carry the intensity as the opener. 'Broken Voices' for example, is a somewhat strange rocker, grungy and stoney but it's also one I had to get used to for some reason.

Not that there are bad songs on 'A Farewell To Dawn', on the contrary. It is a massive album but also one that demands your full attention. It can be tough to grasp the whole thing, mainly because of the skillful injection of influences from decades of rock music. I mean, try to imagine something between Alice In Chains, Deftones, Pearl Jam, Russian Circles, Monkey3, Led Zeppelin, Anathema, Genesis and Triggerfinger. I know, it's not easy but these guys pulled it off.

My absolute favorite is the lingering 'January', a slow but bloody immersive piece of modern rock music. The one with the most hit-potential is the groovy stoner rocker ' A Well Kept Secret', which will easily get Queens Of The Stone Age fans off their feet. In all, obviously, this is an interesting album, loaded with massive rock music and in the end that's all we need. So yes, I will recommend this to all you alternative rockers out there. This will not disappoint you.


​Serge

stoner rock

House Of The Dead is the most recent album by Swedish stoner rock group Ordos, released on January 27. With six tracks – being them The Infernal God, House Of The Dead, Satan Venit, II, Hounds Of Hell and The Witch – House Of The Dead certainly has the traditional elements that aligns stoner rock with the vicissitudes of its qualities, being a very good record all the way through.

With solid, pervasive, deranged and inextricably abrasive guitar lines, typical of the genre, the songs are well structured and amazingly paced. The harmonies are usually calm, but nevertheless captivating, although unfortunately bound to a certain sense of lugubrious monotony. And while House Of The Dead can’t be considered a masterpiece, it is indeed a major album, and a very good representative of the genre. 

While there is a total absence of innovation here, the strongest elements of stoner rock are present all the way through. The group manages to develop a style of their own, and an intelligent sense of originality is inserted within the wider cosmic sense of musicality that follows their genuine melodic intuition, predisposed over a bright sonorous sensibility, that represents everything the genre has, at its wilder considerations.  

House Of The Dead definitely is a work that will please the enthusiasts of the genre. Although being somewhat predictable in terms of harmony and structure, the album doesn’t disappoint. In some moments, the lack of more fundamental components like vigor and strength certainly do their strike, but since stoner rock is a more static and frozen genre, that plays with the slowness of rebel and abrasive guitars, it becomes obvious that Ordos is following the standard procedures of the genre. But they certainly find their own style and grandiosity in the process. In what concerns technical skills, they are amazingly superior, and there is not a single fault on this aspect. 

Well, don’t expect too much of House Of The Dead. If you maintain your expectations in the right level, you will not be disappointed. While this record obviously can be considered a very good album, it’s still just another stoner rock album, with little elements to highlight them above other acts of the genre. But you can listen to this record without any fear. It is not a waste of time. It’s a typical stoner rock album, but a very amazing and decent choice.         


Wagner

stoner rock

bandcamp

Machine Sun is an album released on January 17, by Russian stoner rock project Ritual Haze. With five tracks – Fire, the eponymous title track Machine Sun, Dark Night, Desert Alias and Dither Haze – Machine Sun is a typical, yet amazingly strident, pungently pervasive, astoundingly rude and rewarding stoner rock album. With powerfully shifting and almost psychedelically uplifting guitars, this record manages to be a great achievement, with its qualities relying on carefully elaborated rhythms, and massively huge exhilarating rock components, something which certainly elevates the standards of the work, that manages to be among the highest representatives of the genre.

Although some songs have slow rhythms, which are somewhat common to this type of music, Machine Sun is no ordinary album. Being somewhat laconic and concise – the album is only thirty seven minutes long –, which is something that certainly helps, the masterful, smooth and deliberately unexpected guitar traces that makes the musical fiber of these songs are very intelligent and precise sonorous components. With not even a single minute of monotony, the underlining musical craftiness is encrusted in detail, and an emotional melancholy emerges beautifully in precious moments of artistic sensibility. In very poetic patterns of calmness, deeply inserted in a perfectly established transcendental style of introspective creation, you rapidly perceive that each song has its own unique feature, firmly rooted in a coherent musical diagram, which has its own sphere of sonorous peculiarities. Nonetheless, the album has a clear and cohesive identity, exceedingly enthralled in the vast panel of an expansive horizon of profoundly proverbial musical proficiency. 

Although Machine Sun is not exactly what I would call a masterpiece, it certainly gets close to it. A captivating album, filled with reverberating rhythms, and a true sonority that honors the authenticity and the distinguishable features of stoner rock as a genre – without becoming a generic or simplistic album –, here you have an abundant set of qualities, that makes Machine Sun worthwhile listening. 

With some incredible pearls, which makes easy to consider all the five tracks great musical compositions, unlike many albums of the genre, you never feel bored while listening to Machine Sun. A brilliant instrumental stoner rock album, that elaborates new standards for the genre – but at the same time wisely reinforcing its true core, sonorous shapes and original values – this is a magnificent work, that should be regarded as one of the modern pearls of stoner rock, and, as such, an astounding reference and a splendid example to be followed. A cornerstone record, that could inspire – and certainly will – a lot of bands along the way, in the future to come.            


Wagner

stoner rock

bandcamp

Electric Abyss is an album released on January 18, by Greek stoner rock group Hazy Sea. Almost forty minutes long, and with seven tracks – Storm In My Head, Ghost Rider, Under The Mountain, Run Run Run, Amigos, Deadly Dance and The Road –, this album is a formidable exemplar of the genre, with strong guitars, a solid sonorous presence, and an underling strength of musical relevance, being a spectacular and precious record, that elevates stoner rock into an art sound category. With slow, but bruising, pervasive, pungent and marvelous guitar lines, this album is one of a kind: you will feel profoundly astounded and captivated after hearing the wonderful tunes this album presents us. With almost electrifying harmonies, that are as soft as winds in a spring morning, but concomitantly as incisive as hazardous fire flames incinerating your eyes, Electric Abyss has warm and expansive rhythms – brilliantly shaped by sharp and strident riffs –, that are probably among the best that you will ever hear, in the history of the genre.      

Probably, as you have found by now, the guitars are the driving force behind this magnificent album, although not exclusively. Powerfully sculpting the amazing harmonies of the songs, the musical creation as a whole is a major achievement, giving Electric Abyss a very special signature. Being very far away of an ordinary or common stoner album, this work is a lucid combination of timing, musical form and strikingly crafted melodies. Certainly the work of skilled, technically talented and very proficient musicians, they obviously managed very well the creation of a very authorial style of instrumental rock. 

There is not a single song on this album that I would evaluate as minor or insignificant. And, although the rhythms of the songs are predominantly slow, you will never feel bored or unsatisfied. And this highlights a paradox: the overall harmonies of the songs are quite simple, never too complex or arranged in incomprehensible mathematical patterns. Nevertheless, they brilliantly stand at the height of a monumental musical excellence, easily extracting a formidable, impeccable and sensational sound of virtuous artistic input, marvelously amplified by the intuitive nature of their organic sonorous synergy.

Electric Abyss is a fabulous album. With influences of southern rock, and traditional rock’n’roll as well – perfectly diluted in the overflowing originality of their own sound – Hazy Sea is a spectacular and passionate stoner rock act from Greece, that has everything necessary to achieve their place on the scene. I have never a heard a band with such a simple music, that could sound so ostensibly wonderful. Electric Abyss is simply a great album! You have to listen for yourself, in order to possibly believe.   


Wagner  

stoner rock / doom

Children of the Haze is an album released on January 16, by Polish Stoner Rock group Dopelord. With six tracks – Navigator, Scum Priest, Children of the Haze, Skulls and Candles, Dead Inside (I&II) and Reptile Sun – the album is a classic Stoner album: with slow rhythms, viciously hostile guitar lines, expressively strong sonorous walls and a corrosive pattern of harmonies, the record manages to be very good. Although there is nothing new here, you definitely manage to have a very cool time with Children of the Haze. Impersonating the best qualities of the genre in a very expressive and solid definition, Dopelord does a great job on this album, and from the beginning it becomes very evidently why they are so good.

With pervasive, but subtlety aggressive guitar lines, the songs are well written, elaborated in a solid conjuncture, that highlights the best expressions of the genre. Although eventually you may get resented of a little monotony, Children of the Haze sustains itself very well all the way through, being way better – I mean, really above the top – than the vast majority of other records released on the genre.

Evidently, the guitar lines are what the record has at its best, although the vocals are exceedingly cool, in a very categorical and proverbial sphere of sound. The instrumental passages are mostly surreal, and majorly abundant. The instruments converge and align with one another very well, and technically, they are undoubtedly skilled. The production values also sound professional, and everything that you hear on this record certainly goes beyond the ordinary standards. 

Although I haven’t found this album to be superbly incredible, it has more merits than derogatory elements. The only lamentable things here are some tedious passages – they are there, but are very little – some sonorous uniformity and a “common ground” approach to the genre. Nonetheless, there are interesting melodies, and a demanding originality, that, although shy sometimes, presents itself astonishingly. They are powerful, delusional and whimsical, and you can feel their sound touching your skin.

Although I really like Stoner Rock, it’s not one of my favorite genres. But Dopelord are definitely miles away in an evolutionary and creative stance, if compared to a lot of their contemporaries, and they have an astoundingly surprising potential. Undeniably, they greatly represent Stoner Rock, and have the talent to become one of the main exponents of the genre.        


Wagner

hard rock / sludge / blues

Well well, it's party time, the kind of party with plenty of booze and some scorching rock 'n roll. Undoubtedly a bar fight will break out sooner or later, demolishing the place and leaving everybody outside in the searing hot desert of... well, Austria. That was unexpected, but nonetheless, you should prepare yourself for the hard rocking psychedelic Southern stoner blues sludge metal by this gang from Vienna. It'll be worth it.

I mean, when a band reminds me of Motorhead, Ramones, Melvins, Guns 'n Roses, Korn, White Zombie, Truckfighters and Fu Manchu in only one three minutes lasting songs, I know that I'm in for something groovy and varied. That song is opener 'Boogie' and it will get any party started. However, Lowbau ain't done there, oh no. 'My Guitar' brings out the harmonica and the blues riffs. Obviously, that quickly turns into full-on stoner rock  that is too nice to be ignored.

​'Pretend' is probably one of my favorite tracks here, an up-tempo party smasher that reeks of vintage hard rock and blues. 'World' suddenly drags the whole thing into the world of death metal, at times reminding me of bands like Entombed. That too was unexpected but the song is a blast, that's for damn sure. And then I even forgot to mention that there are some highly hypnotic psychedelic passages to be found here too.

So yeah, this album is more varied than your underwear-drawer and (hopefully) a lot dirtier as well. Everyone who is into the stuff at festivals like Roadburn, Up In Smoke or Desertfest should start worshipping these Austrians now. I'm secretly hoping that these guys take this stuff on the road, maybe find a label and become on of the next big things in the desert-scene. Judging from this record, they deserve that.


​Serge

shoegaze / dreampop

stoner rock

electronic / ambient

Avian

post rock

black metal / hardcore

heavy jazz / noise rock

alternative rock

doom metal

heavy metal

power metal / heavy metal

hardcore / progressive

symphonic meal / gothic meal

techno

alternative / singer-songwriter

death metal / thrash metal

Serge

stoner rock / doom

Gravity Works is an album released on January 3, by Mexican soft stoner rock band Vinnum Sabbathi. Almost forty two minutes long, with only five tracks – Weightlessness, Early Works, Gravity Waves, Loop Quantum Gravity and The Probe B – this space themed album is very soft and calm in nature, having a subtlety atmospheric layout, that easily displays soft harmonies and calm melodies, all the way through. 

With a good and detailed guitar work, the calm rhythms are juxtaposed in a very transcendental overview, although you have to be emotionally aligned with their musical proposal, otherwise you will by inevitably bored. The album unfortunately is monotonous for the most part, despite the unraveling of an interesting musical technique.  Although the rhythm of the songs in a context is somewhat predictable, they undoubtedly excel in their musical predisposition. An instrumental album that has a mainstay of a constant and natural distribution of sound, Gravity Works is somewhat an exercise of patience, that expands the power of calmness in reluctantly aggrandizing melodies, that feels the intricate power of its notes at the bottom of its profound and relentless diagram of musical principles.    

Although it is far from being considered a great album, Gravity Works is a decent record, especially if analyzed in the context of its sonorous expectations. Considered good in an evaluation typified by its own terms, this work has its merits and qualities, being original in a certain point. Nevertheless, it will hardly be a favorite, with the possible exception of a very specific audience, appreciative of really slow tunes. While this album is somewhat good, you can’t avoid the feeling that something was missing. The lack of rapid passages possibly explains the absence of enthusiasm that somehow seems to affect the structure of their style. 

Nevertheless, Vinnum Sabbathi seems to be a genuine band, and they are very skilled technically. With a decent level of musical proficiency, they have managed to do a regular album, which shows a work that can evolve to better records in the future. Highly recommended for stoner rock enthusiasts, Gravity Works, while it can’t be considered a great album, still manages to be a decent record, if you by any chance consider yourself an enthusiast of the genre. Otherwise, you will be totally bored. 

A perennial work that easily evolves from a slow guitar motion into the vastness of the universe, Gravity Works certainly has qualities that allow the album to be appreciated. But don’t expect too much beyond that. Certain passages will leave you exasperated, and you will hardly find the desire to listen to this record for a second time.     



Wagner

stoner / Psychedelic / alternative rock 

Resonate is an album released by Croatian alternative rock band Cojones, on December 2, 2016. Only thirty four minutes long, with eight tracks – Providence, Wait a While, Origin of Fire, Opium, Rocker, Build a Home, Pilgrimage and the eponymous Resonate – this record is a major and strikingly lucid achievement. An excellent album, with very beautiful and uplifting songs, that masterly combines a heavier and adventurous approach with protuberantly melodic and abrasively sonorous songs, Resonate certainly can be classified as one of the best albums of the genre to be released in the end of 2016.

Singing in English, despite being a band of the Balkans – which is no problem at all, of course! – Cojones really deciphers to the listener a coherent formula for a cohesive and coherent expressive alternative rock, sometimes filled by an unorthodox groove, that marvelously completes the harmonies, and integrates into the spirit of their songs a brilliant apex of highlighting excellence, that subtlety showcases soft nuances of stoner rock elements. Wonderfully presented in a very original context, that impersonates a glorious and objective style, pronouncedly genuine, with a solid texture that reiterates the creativity of each and every note of their peculiar musical universe, Resonate is a record that magnificently resonates all over your mind for its entire run. Their ability to introduce and work in a contemporary conjuncture the obviously classic influences they bring to the table is an astounding quality, that inherently evaluates their music as a golden star of sonorous artistic proficiency, elevating its pattern of restless audacity into a scale of permanent ascension. 

With captivating and well-designed songs, Resonate is a fantastic album, that will capture the hearts and the minds of all the enthusiasts of the genre. Vibrating, unique, sensible and heavy, positively inserted into a frame of undisputable musical highness, this is a record that deserves to make history! Able to define itself as a major underground record, Resonate is an album that is filled with the most undertaking qualities ever witnessed, and you decidedly have to listen for yourself, to believe. 

With the complete absence of negative aspects to be pointed out, this album is a superb work! With solid guitar lines, a coherent strategy of sound and an embracing atmosphere of crude delight – if you’re into a very insurgent and abrasive style of alternative rock – then this is the right record for you!        



Wagner
   
 

stoner rock

Slaves of Doom is an album released by Greek Stoner Rock band Stone Cream, on January 1. With nine exceedingly strong and proverbial tracks – Broken bone, Two coins, Montezuma's blues, Dead man, Truck, Piece of s, Homeless, Old man talkin' and Law – Slaves of Doom is a wild and ferocious album, filled with strength, energy and vigor. With the axis of its songs being a majestic and excellent display of wrath, this album really outstood itself by the consistent array of qualities that expand the borders of the genre, without disfiguring it.

Wild guitars and fearless hostile vocals seems to be the main ingredient behind this album, although this is only a fragment of what this band shows, along the way. With protuberant melodies, and powerful rhythms leading the instruments to a major apex of sonorous ambivalence, this album is really a huge reshaping of the genre as a whole, departing from a very genuine proposal. Nonetheless, the basic structure of the songs appears to be pretty traditional, while the musical walls created by the exceedingly exponential guitar lines are a major source of sonorous ascendancy. 

A marvelous album, that is as moderately aggressive as it is wonderfully elaborated, Slaves of Doom shows a more transparent, dynamic and versatile side of stoner rock, that reverberates intensely throughout the delirious thirty eight minutes of this major musical journey. With an infuriating power, their sound explores uninterrupted colors of deliberated symphonies, that technically are wonderfully whimsical as well. Undoubtedly, Slaves of Doom is a compelling and original work, that shows the seriousness and the competence of a band that is constantly growing and evolving, to excel in what they do. A goal that, considering their talent, is something easy to do. 

With unforgiving melodies that blows out the ordinary aspects of stoner rock, and incisively adding audacious elements to their sound without losing the core and the objectives of the genre, Stone Cream one more time displays into the scene a magnificent album, that emphasizes the fact that they came to stay, and to leave their mark in the underground scene. With the astounding work of art that Slaves of Doom proved itself to be, the band expand their musical horizon, achieving a frontline that scores their music as one of the strongest acts of the genre. With an aggrandizing work of a major category, Slaves of Doom, by Stone Cream, is a wonderful record, that strongly resonates by the four corners of the genre, whatever and whenever is played out loud!          


Wagner

     

alternative / grunge / stoner rock

Dimartis is an album released on January 8, by the eponymous Argentinian experimental rock project. With seven tracks – #1, Paisaje sonoro, Relatividad, Destellos, #2, Manos and an untitled bonus track – Dimartis is a quiet, beautiful and transcendental experience, that deeply appeals and reverberates into your soul, as peace takes place in your heart, and you slowly feel yourself as part of something bigger, wiser and stronger.

An interesting instrumental rock album, with primarily ambient characteristics, that strongly evokes a monumental sphere of serenity and silence, Dimartis is almost proverbially conceptual. Dispersed in the spiritual reverberation printed by its fragile, but aggregating style, the sound relentlessly dilutes all the pieces that consecrate the soft projection of melodies, first impersonated at the marvelous creativity of a universe conceived by the talented and dedicated songwriter, that has developed the sincerity and the serenity below these tracks. 

With the prominence of subtle and sensible melodies, Dimartis is a well-conceived and abundantly poetic album. Without fear of innovation, this work transcends boundaries, and transpires legitimacy, while ignites at the same time a candid vortex of beauty, upon which the harmonies meet with one another. Without apprehension of adding to its rock sound more atmospheric tunes of electronic characteristics, this album really projects the ardor of its creativity into a major apex, that strongly resonates throughout the entire album, in a marvelous correlation between space and time, that works in a paroxysm of subtle nuances, that solidifies the zenith of the record with exponentially beautiful melodies, that touches your soul and talks to your heart, imperatively. 

With poetic elements aggregating a whole new set of aspects and qualities into the music, the sonorous artistry in Dimartis is diversified and multifaceted, showcasing inside the tunnels and mindsets of its melodies an ardent overview upon which all the harmonies converge, to emphasize a universe of musical dispositions that determines the sonorous ordeals that strongly shape its versatile concept. Being such a good album, counterbalanced by the lucidity of a rhetoric that definitely integrates the nucleus of a major musical expansion, Dimartis is a curious and intelligently conceived album, that easily evades categorical, narrowed and restrictive definitions. Giving wings to its own style of ambient rock, this album explores the tenures of powerfully crafted guitars, upon which the melodies fly from the sound devices directly into your mind. An album hard to categorize, but easy to listen and to appreciate, Dimartis, exactly like the eponymous artist that created this intriguing record, evidently proved that he deserves to be a mainstay in the underground scene.         


Wagner