I have to admit that I am positively delighted by the proliferation of the two piece over the past decade of heavy music. Perhaps it’s because the setup has become fairly pervasive in the genres that are nearest and dearest to me, sludge, stoner rock, noise, and doom, but its effect is not all that […]

The transatlantic collaborative beast known as Culted is back with album number two for Relapse. Their 2009 debut Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep was a heavy, fuzzed out dagger of blackened doom and sophomore effort Oblique to All Paths continues the established formula of shambling guitar and thick layers of distorted vocals. A […]

Toronto’s eyeswithoutaface is one of the most underrated bands out there in bandcampland. They’ve produced some stellar heaviness on their two full lengths, remix record, and showing an excellent ear for blending and mixing electronic, industrial, noise, breakbeat, and stomach churning sludge. So it is no small wonder that Mike Szarejko, one of the driving […]

It goes without saying that it’s difficult for a band to stand out in a crowded field. With dozens of bands all mining similar influences and plying similar styles, you either have to turn in an incredibly convincing performance that elevates what might otherwise be mundane or you have to apply a twist on the […]

Church of Misery are an institution. When it comes to big, bluesy doom riffs they are untouchable, and if you’re into metal and have yet to hear the band’s serial killer-inspired doom boogie then I suggest you head over to Youtube, punch in “Killifornia” and give a good listen. I’ll wait… All set? Now if […]

It would be easy to assume that a band who takes their name from an Electric Wizard song would fit in nicely with the bleary eyed stoner doom bands roaming metal’s landscape nowadays. It’s an easy assumption, but a wrong one. Despite the implication of their moniker, Las Vegas’ Demon Lung stands out as a […]

Norway’s Devil made an impression on me in 2010 with their demo Magister Mundi Xum and rightly so. Injecting some rough hewn overtones of NWOBHM favorites Witchfinder General in to a bluesy old school doom sound was a perfect antidote to the hordes of image conscious hippies and their retro rock bullshit. Their debut album […]

Do band names get any more generic than Hell? Metal Archives lists 8 other bands with the name Hell, which unfortunately doesn’t include the spoof black metal band I started with a friend of mine in 9th grade. This project from Oregon popped up on my radar via last year’s stellar split with Thou, Resurrection […]

Last year was a rough one for Sofy Major. They made a trip from France to the States to record Idolize at producer Andrew Schneider’s (Keelhaul, Cave In, Unsane) brand new studio in Brooklyn and tour. Unfortunately, their trip coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy and the studio was wiped out just a few […]

Portland’s Orca Wolf Records has only been around for two years now, but in that time they’ve released a small catalog of fine music from Oregon’s doom scene and the self titled debut by Usnea is no exception. Similar to label mates Amarok, Usnea ply a style of doom dirge familiar to fans of Samothrace, […]

Expectations can be a bitch. Archon dropped an excellent debut in 2010. Ruins at Dusk was a heady slab of mountainous, hypnotic doom . It was full of spiring psychedelia and layers of wah-drenched guitars and I hoped for more from their follow-up. Ouroboros Collapsing lands on a distinctly darker note, swapping the larger than […]

It’s been years since their last full length, but Fistula hasn’t kept quiet. They’ve pumped out an impressive number of splits and EPs over the past five years and in the process evolved in to one of the sickest, meanest bands out there. Their latest EP, Northern Aggression, is no exception, as it sees the […]

It has been a few years since Inter Arma scorched a trail through the underground with their debut LP. A corrosive whirlwind of doom, sludge, grind, and thrash, Sundown was a welcome blast of fresh air. Since then they’ve been scooped up by Relapse and spent the intervening years writing their sophomore full length. Sky […]

I remember the collective groan Morbid Angel received when they said they would be incorporating elements of electronic and industrial in to their next record. While that experiment turned out to be… well… let’s say less than good, the sad reality of Ilud Divinum Insanus should only serve to highlight all the great bands out […]

Regarde Les Hommes Tomber add a few wrinkles to the blackened sludge milieu with their self titled debut. Mining similar influences as country mates Celeste, they combine the wiry riffing of black metal with atmospheric sludge and a big dose of hardcore to create an album that doesn’t sit neatly within any of the aforementioned […]

The UK’s husband and wife doom team return with their fifth album of big amps and bigger riffs. Carolyn and Pete have taken their wall of amps and brilliantly fuzzed out tone to a new level on Maleficia Lamiah and produced their finest album yet. The two tracks on offer dump a load of classic […]

I don’t think there’s a genre tag I dislike more than “post”. Post-punk, post-hardcore, post-rock, post-metal… Unlike its sister tag “proto”, which implies something basic, spare, or primitive, the word doesn’t have much descriptive power. When it comes to post-metal, it’s easy to see it as implying a combination of post rock and metal, but […]

Ugly, brutish, and oppressive, Scorn has all the ingredients to be great. Primitive Man’s combination of d-beat crust, sludge, and crippling doom is a combination after my heart and they show a tremendous amount of potential with this release. Its aesthetic is almost grind-like, feeling like a Benümb album without any blast beats. There are […]

Kongh hit a bit of a sophomore slump on their last album. Enjoyable as Shadows of the Shapeless was, it was hurt by some monotonous riffing and a one dimensional atmosphere. Certainly nowhere close to bad, but it didn’t exactly have me craving a follow up. Now it’s four years on and a lot has […]

Italy’s Caronte sound something like Electric Wizard fronted by a super baked Glenn Danzig. They channel the Wizard’s occult atmosphere from Witchcult Today, and the more straightforward stoner doom of Sloth’s Voice of God for their debut full-length Ascension. Thick, burly guitars, Oborn-esque leads, and big swinging riffs that transform into cultic atmospheres congeal for […]

Neurot knows how to pick ‘em. After releasing two monolithic slabs of brain frying doom from Ufomammut this year, they once again reach across the Atlantic to release the latest from sludgy Belgian doomsayers Amenra. Mass V marks the band’s fourth full-length  and first release for Neurot Recordings. It’s got the same panoply of sludge, […]

I recently had the good fortune to attend a reunion show featuring some nigh forgotten stalwarts of eastern Pennsylvania’s hardcore scene; Inkling, Dysphoria, and Chine. The show was a nostalgic punch in the face (Oh, late 90’s pit kung fu) and left me asking a question familiar to us all after we hear seemingly forgotten […]

Average doom, thy name is Witchsorrow. Not much has changed since their debut in 2010. They are still plying the same straightforward style of doom rooted in classic St. Vitus and Cathedral. God Curse Us is as decent as their debut and unfortunately just as unremarkable. And that’s really as far as it goes. Nothing […]

Stoner rock seems to be leaking into death metal a bit more and more these days. Coffins, Acid Witch, and Hooded Menace have all managed to incorporate weedy grooves in to traditionally dark and dreary doomy death metal and have done it pretty damn well. With a member of death metallers Invasion and Nocturnal Torment […]

It could be said that all music is mood music because who honestly puts on an album they aren’t in the mood for? We’ve all got go-to albums for our moods. Records we put on when we’re sad, when we want to relax, when we cook. Birth Control is the kind of album to listen […]