I think it is safe to say that underground metal has enjoyed a period of unprecedented growth and popularity in the last 10 years. But when I am saying this I am not only thinking about the heavy underground; those adherents of the Sabbath sound and this whole new wave of doom metal bands. I am thinking of the fact that (underground) metal has undergone a change in image, too.

Though frequently maligned as hipster bands (or metal for people who don’t like metal), acts like Deafheaven have brought metal to a whole new audience and raised awareness of the genre as a genuine form of art that does not just exist for its own sake; that metal fans only go for gore, beer and self-referential horn-throwing. Not that Neurosis and Godflesh haven’t been ambassadors of this mindset for more than three decades already, but it feels that the understanding of metal as art seems to have finally broken through to an audience outside of the traditional metal subculture in the past decade.

I think it is in no small part thanks to some of the bands on this list I have assembled (though I may have forgone obvious picks like Alcest and Deafheaven for more personal choices). And in retrospect, it should’ve been a list of bands rather than records, as most of the artists on this list would’ve have had a claim to a spot on here, with any record they put out. Take that as a hurray for consistency. So, without further ado, my picks for the best and most remarkable records of the decade.

10. Akhlys – ‘The Dreaming I’ (Debemur Morti - 2015)

I can’t help but wonder if Naas Alcameth of AKHLYS (also of Nightbringer, Aoratos and Bestia Arcana) set out with the express intent to create what is essentially a nigh perfect atmospheric black metal record when he started working on The Dreaming I. It damn sure feels like, each strum, syllable, and beat sits at the right place; the pieces of this nightmarish puzzle fit with an unsettling ease.

The sound really does justice to the underlying concept of dreams and nightmares, as you’ll rarely find a record with such an impenetrable atmosphere. Once you hit play you’re soon enveloped by countless layers of swirling guitars, all at the command of Naas Alcameth, and he seems hellbent on suffocating you with them. The Dreaming I is about as close as you can get sleep paralysis-made-music. If you put off black metal as spooky noise made by a bunch hooded esoteric nerds you might’ve found your match in Akhlys. They are just that, they’re dead serious, and the results are impressive.

9. Elephant Tree – 'Elephant Tree’ (Magnetic Eye Records - 2016)

I’ve observed myself growing increasingly apart from most stoner rock as of late, sometimes even antagonizing the genre. I’m afraid I’m just burned out on it and grown embittered, so a record from those genres ending up on my Albums of the Decade list should give you a hint of just how special it really is.

That is not to say that there haven’t been some real stoner rock heavy hitters this decade, such as Gozus Revival, Valley of the Suns Sayings of the Seers or Lo-Pans Salvador, but there’s something to ELEPHANT TREE’s self-titled record that just so narrowly sets it apart from the others.

What that is I am still not quite sure, and I had my fair share of relistens. Maybe it is the tasteful balance act of the production that makes this record so wonderfully ethereal but also ridiculously crushing. Or the sleek as all hell songwriting where every hook fires but the flow remains impeccable. Or the gorgeous harmonic interplay of Jack Townley and Pete Hollands vocals. Or maybe really just the sum of it all.

Whatever it is, Elephant Tree get it so very right and it is a true joy to behold such a well-written and fine-tuned record in a genre that has become all too prone to shoddiness and idle Kyuss worship. If there is any justice in the world, Elephant Tree will be looked back as a classic of the genre.

8. Oranssi Pazuzu – 'Värähtelijä’ (Svart Records/20 Buck Spin - 2016)

So many have tried to do it. Countless chonged out Hendrix worshippers. Australian neo-psych darlings. But they all failed. Turns out the holy grail of psychedelia was dug up by a bunch of dudes in the frozen wastes of Finland when they decided to throw together black metal and almost every imaginable psych rock permutation under the firmament. Absolute insanity inducing balls-to-the-wall trippiness ensues.

ORANSSI PAZUZU is their name, ego-death squared in hyperspace is their game and Värähtelijä is the latest in a slew of attempts to smear your brain across the event horizon, and their most accomplished one so far. Think Hawkwind trying to interpret the soundtrack of Interstellar with a guy being spaghettified by a black hole screaming on top of it. Huge, plodding riffs and spacey synth fuckery abound.

This madness extends to their live shows, yours truly (being completely sober) suffered a sensory overload when they launched into the crescendo of the album opener “Saturaatio” at Roadburn 2016. This band is taking things to the next level, and something tells me that Värähtelijä is just another chapter in an increasingly maddening venture.

7. Conan – 'Blood Eagle’ (Napalm Records - 2014)

You can’t really draw a picture of the doom scene in the '10s without CONAN. And I do mean that in quite the literal sense, as seemingly every self-respecting doom fan seems to own at least one Conan shirt and you can’t really go to a gig without seeing one.

By all accounts the band probably could’ve retired years ago and just live off those rad merch designs. But Conan knows no rest – always writing, always touring, always scheming. Thus the band has fed a steady stream of releases to a cult-like following over the years and narrowing down the output of such an important band to just one record is no small task. My choice eventually fell on the fan favorite, 2014’s Blood Eagle.

Conan had already pretty much established themselves as the emergent sludge-doom act of the decade at that time, but as we know they’re not one to rest on their laurels and Blood Eagle was just them driving the point home and the stake deeper, solidifying a grasp on the scene that hasn’t waned ever since, and they did it oh so righteously, by the primordial might of tonal displacement and drop F glory.

Conan might have the closest thing to a universal doom appeal because they speak to your baser instincts. Songs like “Foehammer” or “Total Conquest” seem like trebuchets aimed at the synapses of your reptilian brain, and I can’t help but admire these noble DIY barbarians, who so deservedly have carved out their place in the canon of the genre.

6. SubRosa – 'More Constant than the Gods’ (Profound Lore - 2013)

SUBROSA was one of a kind. If one band calling it quits this decade broke my heart, it was them. But before doing so they gifted us three outstanding post-metal records, whose folk and chamber music flourishes felt completely unique, intimate, and anachronistic in a genre dominated by more vast and spacious narratives. They reached inward rather than outward and did so with a no-parts-wasted mentality.

In a world rife with one-trick bands, SubRosa’s employ of multiple vocalists and two electric violins felt natural and unabashedly non-gimmicky, and they would reveal the true potential of their sound on 2013’s harrowingly beautiful More Constant than the Gods.

More Constant is remarkable for its elegant and restrained way of instilling dread. Hardly any harsh vocals, the tempo never goes beyond a steady stride, just those horrific and yet also beautiful violins, plodding guitars, and downright poetic lyrics. And SubRosa seem to feel right at home on either terrain, be it the skin-crawling lead guitar line of “Affliction” or the grandiose outro section of “Fat of the Ram.” One can only hope that SubRosa will return one day. A band that was truly novel, and not just a novelty.

5. Tchornobog – 'Tchornobog’ (Fallen Empire / I, Voidhanger - 2017)

TCHORNOBOG is many things. Among others, a dark, ancient Slavic deity. In the world of music, a monolithic amalgamation of extreme metal, some Eldritch chimera of cavernous black, death, and doom metal. And the beast of one Markov Soroka, though him stating that the Tchornobog inhabits his head begs the question who might really be in charge?

Soroka does indeed seem to be guided by spirits since he started the project at the age 14, and eight years of gestation and arduous work culminated in one of the most engrossing, all-consuming records I have come across this decade. Far be it from me to reduce Tchornobog’s remarkability down to the young age of its creator, but Sorokas ambition and execution of those ambitions could run circles around a lot of veteran extreme metal bands. The man is just flat out talented. And that is not even taking his various other projects (Drown, Aureole, Krukh) into account, or his curation work through his own label, Vigor Deconstruct.

As such, Tchornobog ultimately is, among many other things, a bright spotlight shining on a young man who has all the makings of being the next big underground metal mastermind. I’m sure you’ll be inclined to agree as soon as Soroka brings out the grand piano and saxophone on “III: Non-Existence’s Warmth (Infinite Natality Psychosis)” to perform what I’d like to call Lovecraftian Lounge Music. He must have a thing for Demilich too, judging from those song titles.

4. Hell – 'III’ (Lower Your Head / Pesanta Urfolk - 2012)

There is a subtle power in melodies, particularly melancholic and sad ones. Doom, and more specifically funeral doom, have long since sought to harness the power of the melody, but I think nobody has been quite as effective or moved me so profoundly with a simple plucked melody as MSW, the singular mind of HELL.

Just one minute into Mourn, the opening (and penultimate) track of Hell III), I am already instilled with a deep sense of melancholy, but also foreboding doom. However, few songs can just thrive from having a good riff or lead – and there’s 17 minutes yet to go. I’ll spoil you and say that in this time Hell shifts between doom, black metal, neoclassical music, and dark ambient. That’s a lot of territory to cover and it becomes apparent that for how meticulously well crafted its individual parts are, MSW never loses sight of the bigger picture and the transitions between these different sounds are seamless.

At the danger of sounding like a huge fucking nerd, I really am more inclined to refer to “Mourn” and its follow up “Decedere” as movements rather than songs and if the songwriting doesn’t clue you in you’ll be persuaded by the time Decedere breaks out the operatic vocals and a flute accompanied by a string ensemble. And no matter if he’s performing a contemplative acoustic piece or pounding you in the ground with some absolutely hellish (the band name is apt as can be) blackened doom, MSW always manages to maintain an aura of grandeur. MSW is not just a great songwriter, he’s a veritable composer, and III is his magnum opus.

3. Mizmor – 'Yodh’ (Gilead Media - 2016)

If whatever has come before was bleak, then Yodh is pitch fucking black. This decade hasn’t lacked in dark records (not even taking metal into account – Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me, Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree, or The Caretakers Everywhere at the End of Time), but taking on existential dread specifically (and thereby becoming a vessel for it) MIZMOR’s Yodh remains unsurpassed in its sheer effectiveness to instill said dread in the listener and is possibly the most harrowing record of the last 10 years.

As befits the theme, Yodh genuinely sounds like the work of a broken man. A miserable slab of glacial funeral doom and grimy black metal, but delivered with a brute strength and conviction that really suggests more defiance than self-pity. I’d be remiss to not point out ALN’s incredibly varied vocal performance, ranging from wretched snarls and air-starved bellows to what I can only describe as pterodactyl shrieks, all carrying the same biting vitriol as the instrumentals.

Yet for all its doom and gloom, Yodh surprises with occasional moments of tenderness and outright (if melancholic) beauty, too, such as the acoustic intro of “II: A Semblance Waning” or the massive main riff of “III: The Serpent Eats Its Tail” that feels like the sort of thing Pallbearer would’ve come up with if they had been more into Mournful Congregation than Warning.

All these things combined with thoughtful, introspective lyrics make Yodh into an incredibly powerful and downright visceral record, and if for you the main draw of doom metal lies its emotional potency (as it does for me) then Yodh is an essential listen. Let ALN shout down the very pillars that uphold your personal beliefs of life’s meaning.

2. Pallbearer – 'Sorrow and Extinction’ (Profound Lore - 2012)

Warning was the first band to try to bridge the gap between traditional and modern doom metal, and while Watching from a Distance might have a fair claim to be one of the saddest metal records out there, in my eyes it was PALLBEARER who took that formula even further and perfected it with their 2011 debut Sorrow and Extinction. To me, it’s a classic record in both senses. A landmark of post-millennium doom and a throwback to the days of yore, when Saint Vitus and Candlemass were in charge of bumming everyone out; while still maintaining the larger-than-life-feel and sonic heft of modern doom championed by bands like Yob or Neurosis.

But Sorrow and Extinction isn’t just some roided up epic doom sans the operatic vocals, Pallbearer are far too clever to suffer such a pitfall. Granted, Sorrow sounds huge, and while there’s plenty of the heavy stuff to go around what makes Sorrow so great is how catchy it is. There is no weak song on this record (admittedly there’s only five), and while most bands could only hope to one day write a riff as good as “Devoid of Redemption’s” main theme, it seems like Pallbearer just comes up with them on a whim, and their ability to do so doesn’t seem to have faded three records into their career – not even to speak of Brett Campbell’s soulful lyrics and passionate delivery.

Then, of course, there’s the amazing guitar interplay between Campbell and Devin Holt, chiefly on the casket closer “Given to the Grave,” whose second half essentially boils down to them constantly trading dramatic leads with each other like the world’s most woeful ping pong game.

Sorrow and Extinction is not only a deeply moving yet utterly anthemic record, but also one that successfully marries the past and the present of doom. In that regard, it is a preciously rare and so far unsurpassed record.

1. YOB – 'Clearing the Path to Ascend’ (Neurot Records - 2014)

Writing about metal without resorting to superlatives is hard. Try to practice restraint in the presence of something whose very nature lacks restraint. I am definitely guilty of that lack of restraint; one has only got to scroll up again to confirm it. But luckily some records are so very superlative that I do not have to take that editorial high road and can fire all the “mosts” and “-ests” at will. In fact, they almost require you to use them. Clearing the Path to Ascend by YOB is one such record. Even among all these preceding superlative records it stands above and beyond.

Clearing the Path to Ascend is so vast, it feels singular. It is one and it is all. When I think larger-than-life sound, Clearing comes to mind first. It has become the very benchmark with which I measure other records. Yob’s big and beautiful only consists of four tracks, but they made each feel like a distinct part of a greater journey. “In Our Blood” opens with a recording of Alan Watts telling you it is “time to wake up,” before the song slowly rises into a stretched-out draw and crash, eventually unfurling into a manic guitar line.

“Nothing to Win” feels like Yob’s own take on Neurosis’ Through Silver in Blood. It is an unrelenting, steady 11-minute march down a highway of broken glass, utterly windswept and viciously hopeless. “Unmask the Spectre” seems to tread similarly bitter paths but manages to wrestle itself free into two grandiose spiraling crescendos.

The death knell of an album closer that is “Marrow” shouldn’t really need much of an introduction at this point. It still feels like I’ll see a link, post or share of it every other day. It has become an omnipresence in the doom scene, and deservingly so. Yob dials back on the gloom and shines all the brighter. “Marrow” is not just hopeful; it is downright ecstatic and by the time Mike Scheidt launches into the grand solo of the track (so very gracefully accompanied by a Hammond organ played by producer Billy Barnett) has ascended to a genuine sermon.

Though Clearing had its fair share of dark moments “Marrow” closes the record on a remarkably conciliatory note and I really think that speaks of Yob as a (metal) band. Call it a big move to offer closure – a fitting end to such a big record. One that suits the title of ‘Album of the Decade,’ and embodies the spirit of metal that wants to be just more.

1. YOB - Clearing the Path to Ascend
2. Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction
3. Mizmor - Yodh
4. Hell - Hell III
5. Tchornobog - Tchornobog
6. SubRosa - More Constant Than The Gods
7. Conan - Blood Eagle
8. Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
9. Elephant Tree - Elephant Tree
10. Akhlys - The Dreaming I
11. Clutch - Earth Rocker
12. Merkstave - Merkstave
13. Gozu - Revival
14. Chelsea Wolfe - Pain Is Beauty
15. Valley of the Sun - The Sayings of the Seers
16. Inter Arma - Paradise Gallows
17. Thou - Heathen
18. Om - Advaitic Songs
19. Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
20. All Them Witches - Dying Surfer Meets His Maker
21. Horn of the Rhino - Weight of Coronation
22. Boss Keloid - Melted on the Inch
23. KALEIKR - Heart Of Lead
24. Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus - Spirit Knife
25. Woman is the Earth - Torch of Our Final Night
26. Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising
27. LINGUA IGNOTA - Caligula
28. Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork
29. Messa - Feast for Water
30. Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic
31. Mamiffer - The World Unseen
32. Samothrace - Reverence to Stone
33. Primitive Man - Scorn
34. Fórn - The Departure of Consciousness
35. Khemmis - Absolution
36. Bongripper - Miserable
37. High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis
38. UN - Sentiment
39. Cult of Luna - Mariner
40. Slomatics - Future Echo Returns
41. MISTHYRMING - Söngvar elds og óreiðu
42. Dvne - Asheran
43. Earth - Primitive and Deadly
44. Mars Red Sky - Apex III (Praise For The Burning Soul)
45. The Midnight Ghost Train - Cypress Ave.
46. Panopticon - Panopticon - Roads to the North
47. Mare Cognitum - Phobos Monolith
48. Sólstafir - Ótta
49. Have a Nice Life - The Unnatural World
50. Furia - Księżyc Milczy Luty
51. Tardigrada - Emotionale Ödnis
52. Yellow Eyes - Immersion Trench Reverie
53. Stoned Jesus - Seven Thunders Roar
54. Höstblod - Mörkrets Intåg
55. Ulver - The Assassination of Julius Caesar
56. Zola Jesus - Okovi
57. Funereal Presence - Achatius
58. Wormlust - The Feral Wisdom
59. Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want
60. L'Acephale - L'Acéphale
61. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
62. Vilkacis - Beyond the Mortal Gate
63. Bossk - Audio Noir
64. Carpenter Brut - Trilogy
65. Sumac - What One Becomes
66. Death Grips - Exmilitary
67. Red Fang - Murder the Mountains
68. Lo-Pan - Salvador
69. Whores. - Gold
70. Truckfighters - Universe
71. Greenleaf - Trails & Passes
72. Bölzer - Aura
73. Monolord - Vaenir
74. Dead to a Dying World - Elegy
75. The Body - I Shall Die Here
76. Mutoid Man - War Moans
77. Neurosis - Fires Within Fires
78. Opeth - Pale Communion
79. Planning for Burial - Below the House
80. Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
81. Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
82. Saor - Aura
83. Windhand - Grief’s Infernal Flower
84. Egypt - Endless Flight
85. Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked For Death
86. Deafheaven - Sunbather
87. Kadavar - Kadavar
88. Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust
89. Vanum - Ageless Fire
90. Dai-Ichi - Dai-Ichi
91. Lord Mantis - Pervertor
92. Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I
93. Loss - Horizonless
94. Tome of the Unreplenished - Innerstanding
95. Elder - Lore
96. Witch Mountain - Cauldron of the Wild
97. Ahab - The Giant
98. Alcest - Kodama
99. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation
100. Sleep - The Sciences

For the penultimate show of a European tour that lasted over a month, CONAN played the Westill Festival in Vallet, France. For the occasion, I reached out to Jon and asked him if him and Dave (who was playing bass on this tour) would have a minute to answer a few questions. Although they were both quite tired from a month of hopping from one city to the other, they still managed to make time to talk about the tour, Blackskull Services, guitars, pedals, and amps. We nerded out about gear for a bit, right before Conan went on stage and literally blew up the PA. And I literally mean literally…

So, how did the tour go?

Jon: We’re two shows from the end now, and I could probably still go on a few more shows. I’m a bit tired but we’ve been out a whole month. We’ve been to fifteen countries or more all across Europe. So, it’s been good.

Dave: The tour was great. I haven’t done anything like this for 25 years when Fudge Tunnel was touring. The whole thing was fine though, well organised and we had Un and Sixes from the USA along on all but the last two shows so we all made a lot of friends.

Dave, how did you end up playing bass in Conan to occasionally replace Chris?

Dave: I got to know Jon a little via Facebook, as he’s a big fan of my old band Fudge Tunnel. Last year he asked me if I fancied filling in on bass for a couple of shows while Chris got married. That went OK, and he asked me to do a few more shows that Chris couldn’t make due to his producing commitments. Then earlier this year he asked if I could do a whole four week european tour. Chris and his wife just had a baby, so I’m like “maternity cover” this time out.

Does it bring a different vibe to Conan to have Dave on bass?

Jon: It is a tiny bit different and it’s interesting. Dave and his band have alway been idols to me, so being on stage with him is really great. We’re very comfortable playing and working together, and we get along great. So, it’s brilliant.

You toured with Un and Sixes, which are two bands who have releases on Jon’s label, Black Bow Records. In addition, the whole thing was booked through Blackskull, right?

Jon: I released the first Un album on CD and digital and I think Translation Loss has picked them up for the subsequent release. I distributed Sixes’ more recent album in Europe.

Between Black Bow records, Blackskull Services and Conan, which is a very active band, how do you manage all of this?

Jon: With some difficulty, but it’s fun. I enjoy it, so I keep busy with it. I don’t do everything on my own. Blackskull is myself and my other half, Sarah. There are other people who work within Blackskull, who do the booking. On this particular tour Marie, who does some of the booking with Blackskull, handled all of that. So I can’t take any credit for that really. The tour is going really well and that’s because of Marie, really. She’s been really good at booking everything.

You basically started the booking agency and the name Conan has gotten some momentum, to say the least, over the last few years. It feels like you’re giving back by helping smaller bands.

Jon: I always get asked for advice, and I’m not an expert on everything by any means, but there are a lot of ways that you can help bands get over some of the hurdles, particularly in the early stages. That’s really why it was set up, just to help bands move forward. Obviously there are more serious aspects of what we do, such as negotiating with labels, booking tours, all the transactional things that we do. But on the other hand, we’re here for advice and guidance. I wish I had someone like this when Conan was starting out. There are certain things that we probably wouldn’t have done if we had the correct advice. So you can pass on your experience to other bands and we decided to make a business out of it.

Can you tell us about the bass and guitar you’re using in Conan?

Dave: Up until this tour I had been borrowing Chris’s Dunable Thunderclapper, which is a beautiful instrument. Conan plays in drop-F and his bass was custom made with that in mind, longer scale etc. As we were going away for a lot longer this time I put something off my own together. It’s a P-bass body which I stripped down and re-finished. I put in a DiMarzio DP122 pickup and upgraded the wiring. it has a Gotoh bridge which I set back an extra inch to lengthen the scale. The neck is a fairly cheap jazz style thing which I got on eBay. To make a bass that plays in drop-F you need to use extra thick strings, Rotosound Dropzone+. The thickest string is a 175 and it still flops about and slaps on the fretboard.

I believe Jon started out playing Gibsons and then moved on to EGCs for a while, is that correct?

Jon: The first guitar I started using in Conan was by a British company called Gordon Smith. I had an SG and I recorded the first two albums on that. Over time I’ve used different guitars, I used to have an early ‘80s silverburst Les Paul custom. It’s a beautiful guitar but I didn’t really like the way the strap is bent at a sharp angle the way I wear it. There was once or twice where it actually popped-out of the strap pin. Not cool on a guitar that’s worth about £2,000. Around that time I had an Electrical Guitar Company all aluminium, which is a bit trendy I guess. They are great instruments, but I didn’t want to have two guitars that are worth so much money on the road. I sold that and I ended up noticing Dunable Guitars from Los Angeles, so I bought a couple from him. I have a Dunable R2, I have a Flying V, and I have another guitar that’s being made for me at the moment. It’s like a reverse body clone of a Guild S200. I’ve always loved the shape of this guitar, but not necessary all the switches that are on it. So I wanted that shape but with something more traditional in terms of options, just two pickups, tone and volume.

What about the scale?

Jon: These are not baritones, they are Fender scale [ed. 25.5”]. I’ve always had the Fender scale. The Gibson Les Paul obviously isn’t a Fender scale, and the Gordon Smith was also a Gibson scale [ed. 24.75”].

Do you find the Dunables more comfortable to play due to the scale or is it more of an overall thing?

Jon: I find the overall comfortable enough and they hold the tune a little bit better.

Which is important since you guys are way down-tuned.

Jon: Yes, we’re dropped tuned to F. So it’s important that the strings are tight enough so they sound clear enough when you’re playing. So, that little bit of extra length on the neck definitely helps.

What string gauge do you use?

Jon: The bottom one is a .8 and then I go through to 14 I think. Right now I’m using Ernie Ball heavy gauge strings. They do an 8 strings set, which goes from 80 to 11. I use the first four wound strings and then I don’t remember what the 2 thinnest strings are. I don’t really worry about changing them because I don’t really use them when I’m playing. The other day, I replaced all my strings and just did the first four because they’re the only ones I use, like a poor man’s Max Cavalera.

Dave, I assume your rig is a bit different from what you were using in Fudge Tunnel. Are you trying to get close to Chris’s sound or are you really just going for your own thing?

Dave: In Fudge Tunnel I used a very different sound. Much more top end, and standard tuning. So I mostly used Marshall solid states or Ampeg SVTs with Fender Jazz, Musician or Rickenbacker. When I play in Conan, I try to make it sound good to my ears. Chris is a producer and has much better ears than me, so it probably doesn’t sound the same. He also has a much better beard.

I believe you are using an Orange OB1-300 and QSC RMX 850a (I could be wrong on this one) both rack mounted. Can you tell us a bit about this pairing and how it came to be ?

Dave: My Orange amp is an OB-500, which I really like. It’s ridiculously loud and a bit more reliable than a full-on tube amp. The power amp is there just to run the Peavey cab, which is a 1x18. It’s Conan’s cab, and it’s just there for the low end (there’s a lot of low end). As far as I know all the speakers are stock. The 8x10 is one that we bought on the road, towards the start of the tour in Copenhagen. The one we brought over was a little worn out, and I managed to blow three of the speakers (oops!), so we upgraded. All three bands were using the 8x10 every night so it had to be done.

I saw that the guitar rig you’re using on this tour is different from the one that you’ve been using for a while now. Can you tell us about your current touring rig?

Jon: Very early on in this tour there was a signal problem with it. I haven’t tried it since so maybe it was my cables. But because of that I’ve switched it to two old Peaveys amps. I’ve had these Peaveys in the studio for years now and I’ve never really used them, but I had to bring them out of retirement for this tour. I actually had them fully overhauled and serviced just before we started the tour. I must have had some sort of premonition or something, like I knew this was going to happen. I started using them in Hamburg, which was only the 4th or 5th show on this tour and I’ve got two shows left and so far it’s been good.

I have the Hilbish rig at home and I’ve got the Peaveys now that all of a sudden have caught my attention, but I’ve just taken delivery of a valve rig made of a separate preamp and a power amp.

Are you going back to tube amps?

Jon: I’m just going to try it and see. I’ve got another band, Ungraven, in which I want to run two full stacks with two 8x10s. For that set up, I’m going to run two full stacks with this new rigs if it sound good. It’s a Mesa Boogie Studio preamp, the same one that Kurt Cobain used, and that is going to be run into a Mesa Boogie 295 power amplifier. This is a stereo power amplifier and each channel is 95 watts. That’s all tube. I’m interested to see how that sounds, I think it’ll sound cool. Then I’ll use the Hilbish or the Peaveys through 8x10s. I’d rather use the Hilbish if I figure out what’s wrong with it. That rig could run two 8x10s very easily so that’s what I’d rather use.

What made you decide that you would switch from tube to solid state? This is not a very popular move within the doom scene.

Jon: On our last album I used the Hilbish rig in which I ran a Boss HM-2 clone. I’m not using that pedal live right now, but I’ve been using it quite a lot. I don’t really know why people would have an issue with solid-state. Some of the coolest albums were recorded and played live with solid-state amps. In Crowbar Kirk uses the Orange solid-state 100 watts head, Jimmy Bower from Eyehategod uses a Randall solid-state. Buzz from the Melvins uses the exact same Hilbish rig I have, it was through him that I’ve heard of this amplifier. I like the versatility of it, I love solid-state.

Speaking of amplification, do you have any issues with volume restrictions? France and Belgium are known for having fairly low limitations.

Jon: It has been an issue in some places. Yesterday in France we were a bit louder than they would have liked. It was around 109 decibels and their limit was 102 or 103dB. Some of the shows it’s a little bit of a restriction but nothing too crazy. We played at this place called Fundbureau in Hamburg, which is actually a techno club, and the PA in there is for techno. It was the most powerful PA we’ve ever played through. Our sound guy is good at making us sound good while respecting the dB restrictions, but when he’s let loose on a loud PA it’s awesome. The sound in this venu was crazy. When we were playing the floor and the stage were vibrating all the time. After the set my feet were tingling. I’m not sure if I enjoyed how it felt but it sounded amazing.

Gear is an important component of your sound, so how do you make sure you have the gear you want when touring the US or Asia for example?

Jon: In America we’ve got our own cabs and I’ve got two Hilbish rigs out there. Friends of ours in a band called Serial Hawk in Seattle keep all of our gear in a storage room. We have a bass rig and two guitar rigs out there. We have three 4x12s and an 8x10. So when we go in America on tour it’s all there for us. It costs us less than we spent renting gear on the first two tours. So it makes sense. Rather than spending a fortune renting it I’d rather have some consistency. A lot of bands use Orange amps, and they’re great amplifiers. If I ever have to rent it, I’d rent Orange for sure. I like owning what I use. I can maintain it myself and I know that nobody abused it a week before. Touring through Asia, we played Japan one time and I just used two Marshall JCM 900 full stacks and on bass we used an Ampeg and an 8x10. Australia and New Zealand we just rent whatever’s there. Last time we went over it was Marshall. But if we can specify what we use, we just go for a cleanish sound and two full stacks. So Marshall can do, Orange would do.

Basically a loud pedal platform.

Jon: Yes, my pedalboard comes with me no matter where we play, so I know that’s always consistent. For distortion I’m using a Fuzzthrone, which is a really high gain Big Muff. It works really well for Metal, it works really well for slow, drony parts. I’ve got it dialed in quite well. Although, when I change my strings it sounds a little bit brighter than normal, so the last couple of shows was a struggle to get the feedback swell the way I like it. As long as it’s a clean sounding, loud amplifier I can probably sound quite consistent through them.

So let’s talk about your pedalboard. You’ve worked with Dunwich Amplification for the Fuzzthrone, how was that?

Jon: It’s a Fuzzface stacked up on a Big Muff tone, but I just told him what my favorite sound was and he made it, but louder and with more power to push the amplifier a little bit more.

You tried out prototypes?

Jon: Yes, he sent me a prototype, then I used that and he sent me the real thing. Since then I’ve had three or four different ones and they all sounded the same. He’s a great pedal builder. Right now I’ve got a Fuzzthrone and I’ve got a Nihilist, which is an HM-2 clone. It’s the same pedal I use on the album. The one I use right now has a clean blend, I think it would make for an amazing bass distortion pedal. I don’t use the clean blend for guitar, though.

I’m guessing your pedalboard hasn’t really changed since what you showed in the video you made a few years back.

Jon: Yes, it’s the same thing.

What about bass effects?

Dave: My pedalboard is pretty simple. I use a T-Rex power supply, MXR bass compressor, Boss tuner and a SansAmp bass driver. There’s also a Boss Bass Overdrive just in case the SansAmp dies.

I saw on social media that you picked up Ground FX pedals. Are you using them on this tour?

Jon: No, when we played in Hamburg we went to my friend’s music store and we stayed just above it. This music shop is like a treasure trove. He has amazing instruments in there. I got to play on a late 60s Fender Jaguar and he’s got loads of cool Hiwatt, Orange, and Roost amplifiers. My friend Christian, who runs a festival called Droneburg, told me a friend of his made a couple different pedals and wanted me to try them. So I got one which is a bass distortion and one that is like a Sunn Model T preamp. I tried them out there and it sounded cool, but I wasn’t using my gear. So I’m going to try them once I go back in the UK and see if I can maybe use them on a record.

What piece of gear would you say is at the heart of your sound?

Dave: The modified bass is essential, along with unusual amounts of volume and drive. I wouldn’t want to go “unplugged” in Conan.

Jon: Without a doubt the Fuzzthrone. I’ve been using that since Blood Eagle. I love how it sounds and it makes me play a certain way. It’s taken a new lease of life with these Peaveys that I’m using now, which I didn’t really expect. I love how it sounds. It’s a simple pedal and I have my sound dialed in so it stays pretty consistent no matter what amp I use it with.

You don’t play around much with pedals in studio then? Aside from the HM-2 clone on your last album, would you say that you don’t really stray from your sound?

Jon: I used the HM-2 clone mixed with a fuzz pedal. I didn’t use the Fuzzthrone on the last album at all, I used a Meathead [ed. by D*A*M]. I like mixing things up, maybe on this new album I’ll use the Fuzzthrone because it sounds pretty cool at the moment.

Is the new album ready to go?

Jon: Yes, I got some songs written. We just need to rehearse them a little bit and get them ready for the studio.

It’s impressive how active you guys are. It is something a lot of musicians can look up to.

Jon: It’s something I’ve always been interested in since my mid teens. Writing music has always been a goal of mine. Performing kind of took over and became a thing all of its own. I’ve never had any idea of what it would be like to go on tour, I’d never thought for a minute that we’d do that. We tour quite a lot, we’re very lucky. I don’t have a day job holding me back, neither does Chris. He runs his own studio so he’s flexible. Johnny is also very flexible with his work, so the three of us are lucky. It’s like the stars have aligned most of the time. When Chris isn’t available we can call Dave, which is great.

Thanks again to Jon and Dave for their time and for being so friendly and accessible after driving around Europe for a month. It goes without saying, but Conan played loud and hard and I’m very much looking forward to their next show in our neck of the woods.

Let’s say Black Sabbath is the root of heavy metal and every other metal band grew, evolved or was engineered from there. If we say this, CONAN would probably be like the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park: ancient DNA, mixed with elements from its modern kin and a somewhat unintentional hunger for destruction. And just like the T-Rex, Conan is a terrifying entity, driven by prehistoric instincts. For the last twelve years, this three headed beast has been wreaking havoc across the earth, destroying every pub, club or hall it visited with its caveman battle doom, growing stronger with a steady stream of solid releases. Now it’s time for album number four, ‘Existential Void Guardian’ (2018 - Napalm Records), to prove its worth.

Back in 2016, when Revengeance hit us, we pretty much knew exactly how the record would sound. The Conan formula has always been effective, but kind of predictable. Yes, there were some subtle differences on Revengeance, the odd faster riff here and there, but otherwise it was a textbook Conan record. And don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad thing.

In that sense, Existential Void Guardian starts off predictable. “Prosper On The Path” sounds the way a Conan song should sound: heavy as fuck. The tempo is a tad higher than before, but it still feels like you’re being bashed in the head by a group of cavemen. The biggest difference is in the vocals. Before, Jon Davis would sound like he’s screaming his war cries from a mountaintop, while you’re standing at the foot of the mountain. Here, on the other hand, you can almost feel the spit in your face when he opens his mouth. Indeed, the excessive reverb is all gone. Personally, I don’t mind, because it gives a far more aggressive sound and gives the vocals the punch I missed in Conan’s wall of sound.

“Eye To Eye To Eye” continues on this path of pounding drums and buzzsaw guitar work. By the end of the song, the average fan is used to the higher tempos and the reduced reverb levels. There is however no-one who cannot be shocked by “Paincantation.” The song clocks in at a mere 54 seconds. This includes twenty seconds of feedback at the start. Conan turns its back at everything it stands for and gives us a song that can only be described as grindcore, blast beats and all. It comes as such a surprise that I had to play the song again after first hearing it. For a second I thought I was listening to some ancient Entombed outtake that somehow found its way into my playlist. It is a strange addition to Conan’s catalog and it shouldn’t work, but for some strange reason it does. It fits the more aggressive direction the band takes on this record.

“Volt Thrower” is another odd one out, albeit less extreme than “Paincantation.” Once again, the song is clearly faster than average. This song qualifies as sludge, with a catchy groove and hooky riff. With a duration of barely more than three minutes, it is also uncharacteristically short. I’m not sure whether the title is an un-Conan-ny attempt at humor, but then again, this is an odd song. However, in contrast to “Paincantation,” “Volt Thrower” still feels like a Conan song at first listen and can even be considered a highlight on the record.

Lucky for the old school fans, “Amidst The Infinite,” together with “Vexxagon” and album closer “Eternal Silent Legend,” drops the tempo to the snail’s pace we’re used to. These songs are, however, shorter than before. On the previous record, songs with a duration of ten minutes or more were no exception, but here, no song exceeds the seven-minute mark. This is not really an issue, because these songs all slay! The only downside is that Existential Void Guardian has a playtime of only thirty-five minutes. The record is more focused, with the same amount of brutality in less time, than its predecessors, but that does not mean it doesn’t leave the listener hungry for more. Then again, if that’s the only issue with the album, who’s complaining?

To get back to the Jurassic Park analogy, if up until now we had the dinosaurs of the original trilogy, Existential Void Guardian is pretty much the Indominus Rex from Jurassic World: more aggressive and more focused, but mostly louder and more dangerous than its predecessors. Conan fans, go buy this one and be amazed by this slab of prehistoric mayhem!

Doomed & Stoned is proud to partner with CONAN and The Live Room Belfast to share this striking live studio performance of the band playing three of their standards: “Total Conquest,” “Satsumo,” and “Gravity Chasm.” This comes just weeks ahead of Conan’s new album, ‘Existential Void Guardian’ (2018), releasing September 14th on Napalm Records.

Start Together Studio recently launched The Live Room Belfast to invite touring bands in for special recordings, usually between 3-5 songs, as a way to capture the intimacy of a live studio performance. This set was recorded, mixed, and edited by Niall Doran, with help from Assistant Audio Engineer Paddy McEldowney, and filmed by Ciara McMullan. The team did a fantastic job of capturing the massive weight of the Liverpool trio’s legendary riffs and especially the fearsome caveman vocals of frontman Jon Davis.

This all took place on May 16th, the morning before Conan took the stage with Monolord and Elder Druid at Voodoo Belfast for an unforgettable show. Jon also sat down with Elder Druid guitarist Jake Wallace (who organized our recent Doomed & Stoned in Ireland compilation) for an in-depth interview.

And now, it’s time for Jon Davis (guitar/vox), Chris Fielding (bass), and Johnny King (drums) do their thing! Enjoy…

Conan On Tour

10.08.18 PT - Moledo / Sonic Blast Moledo Fest
11.08.18 UK - Winchester / Boomtown Fair
16.08.18 IR - Galway / The Loft
17.08.18 IR - Cork / Cyprus Avenue
18.08.18 IR - Limerick / Dolans Warehouse
30.09.18 UK - Sheffield / O2 Academy
02.10.18 NL - Eindhoven / Effenaar
03.10.18 DE - Bochum / Rockpalast
04.10.18 DE - Hamburg / Logo
05.10.18 DE - Berlin / Musik & Frieden
06.10.18 PL - Wroclaw / Firlej
07.10.18 PL - Warsaw / Poglos
09.10.18 LT - Vilnius / Rock River Club
10.10.18 LV - Jelgava / Melno Cepuriso Balerija
11.10.18 EE - Tallinn / Sveta
13.10.18 FI - Helsinki / Blow Up 4 Festival
15.10.18 SE - Stockholm / Kraken
17.10.18 SE - Malmo / Plan B
19.10.18 DK - Copenhagen / Stengade
20.10.18 NL - Leeuwarden / Into The Void Festival
07.11.18 AU - Canberra / The Basement
08.11.18 AU - Melbourne / Max Watts
09.11.18 AU - Sydney / Manning Bar
10.11.18 AU - Brisbane / Crowbar
12.11.18 NZ - Wellington / Valhalla
13.11.18 NZ - Auckland / Whammy Bar
16.11.18 RU - Moscow / Aglomerat
17.11.18 RU - St. Petersburg / Zoccolo
23.11.18 UK - Nottingham / The Loft
24.11.18 UK - Leeds / Temple Of Boom
25.11.18 UK - Newcastle / Byker Grave Festival
26.11.18 UK - Glasgow / Audio
27.11.18 UK - Manchester / Rebellion
28.11.18 UK - Coventry / The Arches
29.11.18 UK - Cardiff / Clwb Ifor Bach
30.11.18 UK - Milton Keynes / The Craufurd Arms
01.12.18 UK - London / Boston Music Rooms
02.12.18 UK - Oxford / Buried In Smoke X-Mas Weekender

Do you enjoy being on the road so much?

Yeah, we do. We have always tried to tour as much as possible, ever since the very beginning. I remember the first time we played outside of Liverpool with Charger in late 2010, and that was a really big thing, something we were pushing for to try and breakout of Liverpool gigs. We almost immediately started getting opportunities to tour and play, and for a year or so it was just weekends here and there, I really loved that. Then we got the opportunity to go touring around Europe. Of course, that brought its own problem then, because we had to get a van, so we invested a bit of money in an old Ford Transit. And I remember spending nearly £600 on installing a cool sound system in there, so that we could listen to Iron Maiden on the road full blast. Like with speakers right by our heads in the bulkhead.

There’s something about being on the road, and everyday just looking forward to playing the music that you’ve written, and the law of seeing the reaction of people who are listening to your music, that you’ve written sometimes easily, sometimes songs have come together when they’ve been difficult to write. I’ve always found it really rewarding to play music, whether I’m on my own, or whether in the practice room with the lads, or whether onstage. And I remember when I was 16, promising myself I would do this, telling myself that I’m gonna play music cause I saw playing music as a long term thing that I would be in charge of. I never really wanted to work for anyone else, I always wanted to do music, and I remember as a shy and less than confident teenager, thinking this is a path that I can grow, and I really enjoy, something I could do for the rest of my life, hopefully.

When I get too old to lug cabs then I’ll just pick up an acoustic, and do something with that. So getting on the road has been something we’ve loved from day one, and now were touring all over the world. This year already, we’ve had a US of 5 weeks, we’ve been to Japan for a week, and we’ve got more far-flung shows lined up for the end of the year, not announced yet, plus European tours, another UK Tour, and we’ve got an album out soon. I mean it’s just – we love it. I couldn’t do anything else now, if I had to have an office job, I’d probably commit suicide, seriously. (laughs)

What make Monolord the perfect match for this tour, and will you be back in Ireland anytime soon?

I mean, we wanted a band as physically attractive as us, and we’ve finally done it with Monolord. Seriously though, they are a really cool band, they are really good people to tour with, they’re professional, friendly, really interesting people, and they come from a different culture to ours, and we enjoy being on the road with them. We’re not sharing a van with them, although we have done, we shared a night liner with them in October last year. And we didn’t know what to expect then, as we didn’t know them very well on that tour, but we got along really well. They’re from a different culture but very similar people, at the same time, at the core of what we all are in a love for music, and they put their money where their mouth is, in terms of that. They also like to tour a lot, they release really great music, and they’re a really good live act. So when you are choosing a band to tour with, our booking agent puts forward bands and it was really natural, that us and Monolord tour together. It’s cool that we get to this joint headliner, switch headliners every night. Yeah, they’re just great. I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever toured with a band that we didn’t really like, some more than others, obviously, but they are cool as fuck.

I suppose it’s an interesting parallel, between both bands having three members, you get to see how another band performs as a three piece as well every night. Tell us about the origin of the band name, and how you guys have created a genre known as 'Caveman Battle Doom.’

Well, Conan could have been called anything, really, from '70s and '80s science fiction movies. You know, Krull was one idea that I had for a band name, very briefly I thought about that. We were called Elf-Beater for a time in our practice room – that’s obviously an awful name so we were never going to use that one long term. Conan just came to me one day, you know, I was going through some personal stuff and I’d had to move into my parent’s for a little while, and I started this band up with an old friend of mine who was a bass player, but he played drums a little bit. So we started and we actually wrote and recorded “Satsuma.” We had these songs, and we didn’t really have a settled name. We were going to call ourselves Pazuzu for a little while or Demon-Demaro, as like a Bebo page in that name. There’s some really old demos if you can search for that.

Initially, I wanted it to be a little bit occult-ish type of stuff, and then quickly I realised the lyrics weren’t really going in that direction, and we were more about Sword & Sorcery, Science Fiction, and Mythology. Then I remember sitting there one day just kind of thinking, “What do I for a band name?” and then it just came to me. And it stuck, there wasn’t really any other bands, well there was an Argentina metal band called Conan, but I think they had expired in the '80s, so there was nothing, no current bands within our scene, with that name, or anything close to it, so we grabbed it with both hands.

How did the name 'Caveman Battle Doom’ come about?

The very first show that Conan did in Liverpool was with friends of ours, John McNulty and Gemma McNulty. They weren’t married then but they are now, and they’re really close of mine, and the band, they recorded at our studio. But they put us on our first ever show, when it was just me and Paul O'Neil, a two piece, and on the poster for that show, I think it said “primitive battle doom,” “caveman battle doom,” or “caveman doom.” The label we were on, fast forward a couple of months, we recorded Horseback Battle Hammer and we released stuff on CD with Aurora-Borealis Records. They used that phrase as part of their sales pitch, on the website, taking it from that first ever poster, and then we thought we’d put that on a t-shirt because it looks cool and it sounds cool and those t-shirts just sold like hot cakes. So we thought, that’s a cool name to make a joke about. Obviously, we haven’t created our own genre; it would be awesome if we did cause we’d obviously make loads of money then, but it’s just a bit of fun.

I know yourself are involved in Black Bow Records and Chris is involved in Skyhammer. How did both of those projects come around? Was it through the band that this became something you were interested in, or what was the path towards a label and a studio?

When I moved into a large house in a rural location, not far from Liverpool/Chester, there was a couple of extra buildings. One of them was a large coach-house and I actually wanted to turn that into a rehearsal studio initially. But it needed a lot of building work, which would have cost a lot of money, so I thought, “I wonder if I could somehow turn this into something that would repay some of that investment? So I’ll do a practice room and then I may be able to rent the practice room out to bands.” And I thought, “Nah, I don’t think that will make generate enough money to make it worthwhile, unless we have people in there all the time.” And if we did that, it could just be people in there 2-3 hours at a time and it would be a bit of a nightmare to manage, with it being a home. I then thought of, “Well I could turn it into a recording studio.” So I got a couple of quotations for layout and stuff like that. It became obvious that it was going to be really expensive to do. So I thought, “I’ll do that and see if I can maybe learn the ropes, I might work in there myself as a recording engineer.”

For an extremely short-lived time I recorded bands in their practice rooms. I had one band ask for a refund, so then I thought, “Maybe I need to practice a little bit more.” So I was going to set up the studio and decided not to, in the end, when Chris got in touch. Me and Chris had been friends and I’d been asking him what microphones to get and what stuff do I need really to set up a studio. We got chatting then one day out of the blue, and he wrote to me saying he had a really crazy idea and could he ring me. So I said okay. He gave me a call and Chris’ idea was that he would come and work in the studio and take over and run it, and I waited a little bit and spoke to my wife. Then in the morning, we chatted again and it became obvious that yeah, it was going to be a great idea. Chris and I started working in the studio from August 2013, the build started in May the same year. We had a company called Studio People do it and they were brilliant.

The first band in there were called Bast and they came into the studio. They didn’t have a label, I think they had been in talks with Candlelight Records, but nothing had been agreed at that point. So they recorded this album called Spectres and I said, “Why don’t I just release it for you?” It was cool to release the first thing we ever recorded at the studio and that album did quite well. I had to repress it and then another band came in and I released theirs, as well. Then I spoke to Fister and Norska from America, I did a 7-inch split. Before you know it, I’m releasing music from bands all over and it’s just snowballed. I didn’t expect it to and I didn’t really try very hard, to be honest.

I’m still learning all the time about running the label, make mistakes all the time, but I love it and it fits in nicely with the band, fits in nicely with the studio. I’m able to really diversify within music now, because obviously everyone has to earn a living somehow and unless you’re very lucky, you can’t earn a living from just the band. Some people can, but I can’t, so I have to add other things on to make it possible to have a career in music. So that’s all I do now, thankfully.

You guys feature heavily in the upcoming documentary 'The Doom Doc’ which is due out this summer. How important is a documentary like that in promoting the underground?

I think it’s cool, because it engages with people who may not have necessarily have checked out the bands that are being talked about on it. It gives a good overview of what the scene is like and it’s something that you can take all round the world. We’re friends with Joe Allen, one of the lads who made the documentary, and we played in Japan with him recently and his band Kurokuma. We played a sell-out show in Tokyo in a venue called Earthdom, which hadn’t sold out for ten years or so. And part of the reason why it sold out so well was because the documentary was really popular over there. It’s really cool, because it’s shone a light on the very grassroots level of heavy music in the UK and beyond, and I don’t think a documentary has done that really for UK heavy music, the very grassroots level, or I’ve never seen one that does it. Obviously, in America you have Such Hawks, Such Hounds. It’s good that something like that has been made in England.

Finally, you’ve got the next album 'Existential Void Guardian’ coming out in August. What can you tell us about that?

Well, it’s all recorded and mastered now. We’re just waiting on a video getting done for one of the songs and I’m not going to give any of the songs away, but it’s cool, it’s heavy as fuck, and we’re really proud of it. It’s the first album that we’ve done with Jonny on drums and it was quite a challenging album to make, because if we’d had anyone else on drums I don’t think we’d have been able to manage it. But fortunately, Jonny being as professional as he is, he came in after touring with us for one month, just practicing a riff or two here or there in sound checks, and we sat down in the studio and we kind of wrote the drum parts of the album within a week – or a weekend event, maybe 3-4 days – so it came together. It wasn’t easy, but the fact that it came together at all was a miracle, because we didn’t allow ourselves the usual amount of time to write an album. So we pushed ourselves to the limit to get it written and get it to a level that were really happy with, because we wouldn’t have released it otherwise. We wrote the drums and the guide guitar in the first few sessions, and then we went back and recorded guitar and bass, and when we got back from Japan we recorded vocals.

It came together in a different way to all the other albums. Maybe Revengeance was a bit like that, but everything up until then was the product of weekly practices, an hour or two every week. So we’re kind of getting into this vein now, where we’re writing music almost like as soon as we sit down. We get together and we can all play and write music together. It’s really cool. I think a lot of that is to do with Jonny, because he’s got a particular style that really blend in with what me and Chris are doing. It comes out mid-Sept. Tony Roberts is doing the artwork, as many people would expect, the artwork’s cool. And we’ve got a really good video coming out, it’s been done by the same people who shot the “Foehammer” video, and I gave them this idea of what I’d like them to do with this next video, and it’s insane. It’s everything I would ever want from a Conan video – it’s so sick, it’s amazing.

The story of doom begins two generations ago in the UK with a band called Black Sabbath. An important new film, titled The Doom Doc, seeks to connect the dots from those early days to the present, just one city away from Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill’s Birmingham roots. Directed by Connor Matheson, the Sheffield documentary was released the same year as Black Sabbath played their last.

DOOM /do͞om/

noun

      death, destruction, or some other terrible fate

verb

      condemn to certain death or destruction

The Doom Doc made its timely appearance in 2017; the year Birmingham legends Black Sabbath decided this was (really) The End. Roughly an hour-and-a-half north, we’re met by the hustle and bustle of Sheffield, England. Traffic is awash in a glowing red hue. Pedestrians going to and fro in crowded movements reminiscent of a group of ants.

Sheffield is home of Def Leppard, Human League, and Pulp for the mainstream. For the underground, it’s home to Kurokuma, Regulus, Ba'al, ARAE, and a steady swell of others who are making sure the UK doom scene stays on the map right where Black Sabbath left it.

We hear the voice of Craig Bagshaw, who lives in Sheffield and also fronts Holy Spider Promotions. He tells a tale of going to a party and one of his mates answering the door with a screwdriver in hand and a wild look in his eyes. Upon entry, Craig’s friend tells him that he’s got some MDMA and he’s already toasted. There is an argument about quality of said MDMA. Craig’s friend then takes his belt off and starts whipping his mate’s asses as if he was their dad! He screams some twisted gibberish about the Holy Order of the Spider.

Most everyone reading this understands how DIY metal is and even more so with doom and sludge. Jack Newnham of Slabdragger argues, “You’ve just got to make your own scene. You’ve got to make it happen! If you don’t, there isn’t a scene.” Not surprisingly, heavy music for these folks has become a lifestyle. “It goes beyond hobby to a lifestyle,” insists Slabdragger’s Sam Thredder.

Doom may mean different things to different people, but to George Ionita of Kurokuma and ARAE, “Doom’s like fucking apocalypse! It’s like when it rains down on you, like when it’s so heavy…When we come out with a heavy riff, we’ll take off our plugs and stuff and just fucking mosh. That’s what doom is! It’s the pleasure inside, when I close my eyes playing the song and I see visuals.” George has an example in mind for us, too. “We’ve got this song about a fucking volcano. I close my eyes and I think about the volcano. I see the volcano overflowing, exploding. It’s boss! It’s all I’ve got to say.”

Bandmate Joe E. Allen chimes in: “You don’t go to doom-sludge shows to hear nice melodies and to hear someone singing nice songs. You go because you want feel like something heavy hitting you in the chest and that’s the kind of shows we put on with Holy Spider. We don’t want something that feels like a normal metal gig. We want to do something that feels like you’re on some other plane of existence. It’s just mashed together into this experience of really loud, really. Really extreme heavy, affecting music.“

Sheffield-based writer Rachel Genn serves as narrator of The Doom Doc, tracing doom metal all the way back to the almighty Black Sabbath.   Sabbath changed everything and influenced everybody. They’re the first band to tune down, she recounts, because Tony Iommi had to in an attempt to play guitar after an unfortunate industrial accident clipped several of his fingertips. The incident is recounted in Tony’s own memoir, Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath (2011).

"That started the whole thing,” affirms drummer Vinny Appice of Black Sabbath, Dio, and Heavy & Hell fame. “Tony plays in the pocket, playing these chords. You wanna hear doomy chords? Just let Tony riff for a little bit. It’s amazing! That’s why we call him Mr. Riff – The Riff Doctor!”

“Yeah it’s all about Sabbath really, isn’t it, to be honest?” turning back to Slabdragger’s Sam. “Like, they just smoke weed all the time – so did all the bands in the ‘60’s – and they make the music we pretty much make.”

Rachel sums it up nicely for us all: “Doom metal is a subgenre of metal and involves very slow tempos, extremely loud volumes, repetitive, sometimes psychedelic, riffs, and long compositions. Lyrics dealing with evil negativity, spirituality or fantasy. It’s the musical equivalent of wading through black treacle.”

I’ve not had an experience with black treacle, but it sounds tantalizing.

“I think like one of the main things with like the Conan guitar sound is, in general, that the fact that the guitar is tuned to drop F, which is totally, ridiculously low,” Says Chris Fielding of Conan and Skyhammer Studio with a chuckle.

Breaking down doom even further, the documentary tells us where the subgenres of sludge metal and stoner rock fit into the equation. "Sludge is like a wilder, greased-up version of doom,” we’re told. “It was Melvins from Washington who first begun the sound.” The Seattle band, of course, famous for its punked-up doom tendencies. Other bands like as Eyehategod, Sourvein, Thou, and Crowbar would go on to define the genre even more distinctively.

Speaking of which, the great Kirk Windstein now makes an entrance to tells us about the sludgey roots of the venerated NOLA band Crowbar. “We had come from thrash backgrounds and all that kind of shit. We were like, We just want to do something completely different. We’re burned out on it. We kinda just did the opposite of what everybody else was doing. Everybody else was tuned to E standard, playing 1000 miles an hour [so we] tuned it down to fucking B and drop A, playing super slow. We felt it made it a lot heavier.”

It appears that Kirk has been caught up in the Spirit at this moment in the interview, as he then exclaims: “God it’s so fucking heavy! There’s no way to describe it. I love heavy music!”

Cheers to Kirk Windstein and his earth-shakingly heavy riffs.

In the ‘90s there was another scene that must be mentioned to understand the evolution of doom metal. Several states down from Washington, another important development in heavy music was taking place in the much sunnier terrain of the southwest. Most famously, bands like Kyuss and Fu Manchu dabbled in fuzzy, tuned-down rock ‘n’ roll, which we simply call stoner rock. Stoner bands began appearing not only in California, Arizona, and Texas, but all around the freaking world.

Rob Graham of the Sheffield-based Wet Nuns and Drenge mentions being a little irked by the term stoner rock. “I think it’s sad when any form of expression becomes just about the drugs that the people are into,” he says, while also noting: “It’s pretty cool to smoke weed and listen to heavy music.” A better word to focus on? Blues. “To begin with we were sorta just a blues band. Like we were this thrashy kinda garage blues band. Bored, creative people that wanted to really [make] fuckingly stupid loud music.”

As the conversation goes along, we stumble upon a familiar theme: “Somewhere along the way we stumbled across this like kinda thing heavy, so heavy!” Rob says, notably enthused. “That’s what we’re about we were trying to be as heavy as we could be. It’s like trying to run in a swimming pool! It’s like being stuck in a tar pit and melting. That’s what it conjures to me, anyway.“

Anyone up for little skinny dip in a lake of treacle?

While “stoner” may be used in a derogatory sense, there’s no denying that marijuana has been a huge influence for doom metal and stoner rock bands alike, leading to the advent of stoner-doom. If Black Sabbath started doom’s love affair with their ‘71 single “Sweet Leaf,” bands like Electric Wizard and Sleep (with their monumental opus, Dopesmoker) forever married Mary Jane to The Riff. Others, such as Weedeater, Weedpecker, Bongzilla, BelzebonG, Dopelord, Dopethrone, have become important mile markers for the scene.

"Yeah the two seem to go hand in hand,” says Kez Whelan of Terrorizer Magazine and Nottingham doom-grind act Shrykull. “Even though it’s associated, that sweet leaf is the influence it isn’t for everybody in the doom scene.”

Not everyone is down with the dope, however. Craig and Joe’s counterpart in Holy Spider Promotions, Terry Larkin, is introduced to us next. A UK doom fan, he is quite; a marijuana fan, not so much. “I was never really into the whole listening to music and smoking weed. It doesn’t affect me nicely at all!” He does seem to contend that we can get high on the music composed by a musician under the influence. “They can actually channel it into the music effectively giving the listener that same feeling, too.” Music makes you high? That’s a thesis we can get behind.

Kirk Windstein returns, because you know he has stories to tell from all those years hanging with Phil Anselmo, Pepper Keenan, Jimmy Bower, and the rest. “A lot of the guys did smoke weed,” he recalls, “so we were very creative sitting in a circle together with a good buzz, you know, coming up with shit that ended up being great. Down was much more of a collaboration and a jam session type thing. So we jammed from fuckin’ in the afternoon until whenever – fuckin’ two o’clock in the morning. By then, everybody was tanked or high or whatever might be. We were able to come up with some great music doing it that way!”

By this point in The Doom Doc, we’re clear on at least one thing: doom, whatever the flavor, is about keeping it real. You’ll never be short of songs about the despair, depravity, and greed in this dog eat dog, eye for an eye world of ours. Doom metal bands are straight shooters. Whether it concerns religion, politics, or human nature, they call it like they see it.

“Bands like us and in our genre and the whole nine yards, we write and speak about reality,” Kirk says. “A lot of people are scared of reality. The truth hurts. A lot of people try to sugarcoat it [and] sweep it under the rug. I think it’s important. People always ask me, you know, ‘Can we talk about this, can we talk about that?’ I’m like, you can ask me anything you want. I might not answer, [but] chances are I’m gonna.” What he says next really resonated with me, as I’m sure it will with many of our readers: “I think it’s really for people struggling, you know, with depression – or its alcohol and drugs. It’s very important for them to realize they’re not alone and other people have been there.”

Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man chimes in: “We’re writing about real life stuff, you know, so it’s like a way to release bad feelings about life’s shit, if that makes sense.” It makes good sense to me.

“I don’t know what we’re into, but I fucking like it!” proclaims the great Bill Ward, adding: “You know, for me, playing in a loud, aggressive band, which is what Black Sabbath was, it’s the most comfortable, sonic, and heartfelt place one could be.”

Doomed & Stoned’s Elizabeth Gore and Hugo Guzman were fortunate enough to contribute to this portion of The Doom Doc, visiting the Black Sabbath drummer at his studio in Los Angeles.

This scene we invest in.
We choose to nourish this garden.

“Doing a live gig,” Bill Ward says, “I need to thrash and to play and get everything out of me and reach that place of satisfaction inside. I like to come off the stage wasted…It’s very sexual. It’s like, you know, it’s the same thing we have to do when we get together and have sex!” Oh, Bill. You do have a way of leaving us speechless.

“Playing live on stage gives me that same feeling,“ Bill continues. "That’s what music is supposed to do! It’s supposed to go wherever it’s supposed to. It’s pretty simple. I find no faults, no judgement, you know. Leave that to someone who’s more righteous. As far as I’m concerned, metal’s fucking metal!”

Returning now to Joe E Allen from Kurokuma: “I remember Conan being extremely atmospheric, extremely heavy, extremely loud – and that was only amplified by the way we were feeling. It was almost a transcendental experience. I was touched by the finger of doom that night!“

As a vested fan of the genre, this was pretty much my “Hell, yeah!” moment of the documentary. From start to finish, The Doom Doc is an evident work of passion. For fans of doom, it should be required watching. I’m not sure how newcomers to the genre will take it – it’s hard to be objective when you listen to it, write about it, play it, and live it. Nonetheless, this 90-minute film is a welcome entry into a fairly small collection of documentaries on the heavy underground. Hopefully viewers will be inspired by it to dig into their own local scenes and do a little riff-mining of their own.

Upcoming Screenings of The Doom Doc

• International Film Festival Rotterdam (Holland), January 2018
• Desertfest London (UK), May 2018
• Bristol (UK), May/June 2018
• Brutal Assault (Czech Republic), August 2018

Look for The Doom Doc on DVD by this summer at www.theDoomDoc.com

UPDATE!

The Doom Doc DVD is now available pre-order, with worldwide shipping and streaming options availalbe.   Visit: thedoomdoc.bigcartel.com

Earlier this year I had the honor of interviewing one of modern doom’s spearheads, Britain’s almighty CONAN. After crushing my head for a solid hour, I sat down Jon and Chris and a ringing pair of ears to talk about their favorite songs to play live, the state of the scene, and bonding with your family through video games.

So, how are you guys doing today?

Jon: Good. Thank you!

Chris: Good!

: How has the tour been so far for you?

Jon: Uh, progressively warmer. We’ve been all over the place, driving from one end of Europe to the other.

So this is something I commended you for: you’ve got this, dare I say, relatively “simple” approach to music, yet you manage to keep it interesting. How do you do it?

Jon: Well, we do change the band members in between albums. (laughs)   I don’t really think there is some magic to it. Some of it is skill, I’ll say. We do make a conscientious effort to write music that is different than what we did previously. We want our music to be complimentary, not just a copy. We see each other quite a lot, we sit together, and talk.

Chris: We all live in the same area. I’m pretty much always at Skyhammer [Jon and Chris’ renowned studio] since that’s where I work, and Jon lives there.

Jon: And, well Rich [Lewis, ex-drummer as of August 2017] lives in Cardiff, but we get together often.

Which makes me wonder, Jon, are you involved in any of the studio work?

Jon: No, not really.

Chris: Jon makes me a cup of coffee.

Okay, let’s talk lyrics. The title track off your last record was a bit different from the kind of “swordcery” stuff you usually do. A lot more negative in tone, less reliant on the fantasy themes. Is that something you wanna continue in the future?

Jon: Well, it’s actually still written in the same world as the rest of the songs and it’s not personal, we just wanted to flip the world around. Everything so far was about triumph and victory, and we felt like changing up things. Maybe we’ll continue with it in the future. It was enjoyable to write that song.

One more noticeable change with ‘Revengeance’ was how different the pacing was. Did you choose Rich deliberately since you were trying to write faster stuff, or did that happen naturally once he was in the band?

Jon: I don’t think we did deliberately.

And what is your favorite song to play live?

Jon: Well at the moment I guess me and Chris will both agree on “Thunderhoof.” It was such a fun song to write too, it’s essentially a hymn to our old touring van and the lyrics pretty much describe us driving to a show and playing on stage. You know, mounting the horse’s back, battle hammer in hand.

Man, I loved “Thunderhoof.” It was probably my favorite song off 'Revengeance.’ Can you tell me a bit about DOS, your new side project?

Jon:Well, we recorded one full length demo. The idea behind DOS is to create music that is more stripped down than Conan.

Oh, so it is a drone record?

Jon: Yeah. Conan could’ve gone in one of two directions and it obviously went into the one it is right now, but the energy I had back then could’ve also been channeled into something slower like drone. I was happy with the direction that Conan was going, but I still had the urge to try out the slow stuff. I got together with Kurokuma’s drummer, Joe E. Allen, in the studio to write really simple, heavy songs.

I initially assumed that DOS, based on the name and logo, would be some kind of dungeon synth thing, but Joe was fast to correct me on that. It still leaves curious about the story behind the name and logo, though.

Jon: Well, I’m not 100% sure yet if I will include them, but the lyrics and themes of DOS obviously center around videogames and all that. MS DOS, you know.

One of my friends really wanted to know more about your gear. What kind of strings and tuning do you use?

Jon: We tune to dropped F and the guitar tuning is F, C, F, A#, D, G. Bass is F, C, F, A#. On the guitar I use a D'Addario .8 bottom string and then the next five string are the first five strongs of a set of GHS Boomers, I think some special edition – the Axl Rose set (laughs) – and I use them on my Gibson Les Paul. I got the Les Paul in a deal when I swapped an amplifier. Then we took it on tour and I fell in love with it. I said, “This sounds really nice.”

You’ve turned into quite a businessman over the years with Black Bow, Skyhammer, Atlantean Merch and Conan. At what point did you realize that you could make a living from music?

Jon: Well, I definitely couldn’t make a living just out of Conan. Conan is more of a hobby now, I would say, but with everything added together we get by fine. I gave up on a well-paid job so I could play music. Of course, some wanker will say I gave up a well-paid job so I could play music. I’m really happy I made that choice, because it means I also get to spend more time with my family and kids. I think you should diversify in your life.

And how do you keep yourself level-headed? There must be so much stuff going on with the label, Conan and Skyhammer.

Jon: Oh, I am definitely not levelheaded! Everybody will tell you that I am the most impulsive, annoying person around. I have more ideas than I have shits in a week, and not many of them come to fruition. There was a time not so long ago when I said to Chris: “You know what, I wanna become a mastering engineer.” And within 24 hours I decided to scrap that plan. I would’ve been the worst master engineer ever, and I got tinnitus.

Suppose that’s inevitable when you play that kind of music. Speaking of which, besides metal and all, what else do you listen to?

Jon: Well, all sorts, pop, acoustic stuff.

Chris: I do enjoy some folk and jazz on the side.

I wanted to get back to the lyrics again. Is there any franchise, game, movie, book whatever that you’d love to write a song about in the future?

Jon: Oh, there’s tons of games. Shinobi. Ghosts n’ Goblins. Strider for the Sega Megadrive. There’s millions of games that I could work with.

Chris: RoadRash.

Oh, that would be glorious!

Jon: (laughs) And of course Sonic the Hedgehog. We haven’t really done anything on Altered Beast yet, so that one’s probably going to happen.

Ah, wasn’t that the name you used to play a secret show in Paris?

Jon: Yeah, exactly!

And so far, how many of your songs have been inspired by games?

Jon: Off the new album, Wrath Gauntlet definitely is, some lines in Throne of Fire. Altogether probably 15% of our music. We’re mostly inspired by the scenes in the games.

And what do you play?

Jon: Well, Skyrim all the time. My son and I, we text each other all the time: “Have you got that sword or done that quest?” It’s great to connect and have a part of my life that is on exact the same level as his. I really value that time. I got the new Gauntlet one the PS4, that one’s a lot of fun.

Calvin: That’s awesome! I’ve spent countless hours amassing unique weapons and armor in Skyrim, I’m a lootwhore myself. Alright, this question is a bit different, but I always get some great answers: If you were a demon, which five objects would one have to place in a pentagram to summon you?

Chris: Well for me, first of something related to motorbikes. Maybe throw a guitar in as well. I love me some bikes.

Jon: In direct contrast to that: a leper’s hand, a book written by a dying man, the first and third toes from a liar.

So, what’s in store for Conan in the future? When can we expect a new record?

Jon: Early next year hopefully.

And where do you see Conan in five years?

Jon: Ideally, we will still tour, play cool show, write good music and hopefully still enjoy it, regardless whether the scene is still popular or not.

Which brings me to my next question: What’s your take on the state of the scene? Do you think the boom will continue?

Jon: I think it won’t last much longer for some bands. These bands get pushed upon people and they’re not that good. They think they’re cool, they think they fit into the genre, when in fact they do not. As soon as the trend moves on, so will these bands. There’s a lot of people that latch on due to the popularity of this sort of music, and it’s not just bands, it’s also managers and the likes, flying around like flies around a pile of shit; letting a lot of people down, messing with their futures. It’s annoying, and hopefully when this sort of music may still be popular but less trendy a lot of these people will go and do something else. We don’t really need them.

What are some smaller bands, maybe from your own regional scene that you think people should check out?

Chris: Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard from Wales. They’re really good. I think that band, they’re taking the blueprint sort of thing and putting a different spin on it. They’ve got good riffs, but the other thing they bring to it is the vocals – they’re really, really interesting. They’re a really good band.

Jon: Boss Keloid is pretty cool, too. Slomatics, you probably know about them. You’ve got Drought, as well, with Conan’s ex-bass player, Phil.

Chris: Iron Witch.

Jon: Biggus Riffus – they’re probably one of the heaviest band we’ve played with.

Chris: I feel bad for not being able to remember more right at this moment.

Jon: One More Victim. I like to call it cakedown instead of breakdown, because it is so heavy. And so many more bands that I cannot think of right now. Tons of great stuff you can find through the web nowadays.

I love me some Boss Keloid and Slomatics. Alright, one last question, a cheesy one. If you were to ride into battle, what would be your weapon of choice, and which beast would you mount?

Jon: I would ride into battle on a pogo-stick made of mammoth spines. And my weapon of choice would be a razor-sharp spiders net which I would use to penetrate people through the face.

Chris: I would probably surf in on the back of an eagle, and the eagle is on fire, and I would use a massive sword that is forged from the heart of a volcano, since I wanna keep it simple.

Sounds like a very effective way to strike terror in the hearts of your enemies.

Chris: I probably would have to wear some sort of fire-proof clothing.

Review & Concert Footage by Elizabeth Gore

Little more than a year ago, CONAN rode down the mountainside through Glendale, California, on tour with Seattle Doomers Serial Hawk and picked up local favorite YIDHRA to play at The Complex. This year, we were lucky enough to have them return to The Complex on another North American tour with NORTH and SIXES had the honor to call this show their debut performance.

The Complex is one of the remaining venues in Los Angeles that still hosts the majority of underground metal shows, namely by seasoned Church of the 8th Day promoter, Dan Dismal. Bad news came the day of the event, however, when all involved were notified that the show had to be moved from The Complex to the mysterious 103 Lounge. Changing venues the afternoon before a show is haphazard, to say the least, but thanks to social media and the endless notifications we receive during the day, the intended crowd turnout found the replacement venue without difficulty.

The new venue definitely had its challenges, as Dismal and The Complex crew had to haul the soundboard, stage, and rent out a PA system just to accommodate the makeshift space. As I navigated my way through the crowd to the front of the stage, I realized with the stacked amps on top of the stage, there was only remaining room for the drum kit. This was going to be a quite intimate experience, being on the same ground as the musicians, within spitting distance.

The roar of the crowd was muted out by light feedback as SIXES took the stage, and the frickin’ laser beams began their randomization. Being their initiating show, Sixes’ performance was in high demand after their single “A Cross To Burn” debuted on Doomed & Stoned and caught momentum via other esteemed blogs. Their stage setup was certainly appreciated, adorned with ram skulls, and burning black candles.

If Sixes were nervous, it wasn’t particularly evident; they stood up to the critical crowd and bellowed back. All instruments were verily compelling on the system, but it seemed as though the vocals were more drowned out than usual. With the conditions of the sound system, and the fact they weren’t able to rebound off the feedback (being separated from their amps), moments of molasses sludge and deep canyons of phrasing were slightly lost.

Throughout their performance, I was keenly aware of how shrouded in darkness we all were, and how the music could bring us to an older place in the Aether. I once characterized their message as “schismatic nihilism,” and in this performance sensed quite a bit of aggression from Cummings and Bogacs, but would have liked to see a more vicious side of Reddis. Regardless, Sixes played a no-nonsense set, keeping true to their doom roots, as their current songs are on average thirteen minutes apiece.

I’m still fighting internally whether I consider Sixes to be blackened doom (because of their surfacing ideology and world views) or sludge. You all can decide for yourselves based on their latest single, and this footage of “Acid God” with which they opened their set.

Follow The Band.

Worship Amps. Not Gods.

After a resounding applause for Sixes, the sludge enthusiasts, NORTH began to load on unmistakable Worshiper Cabs, the remaining backline, and other gear onto the stage. When North first came onto the scene, I was skeptical about their take on post-rock/sludge, because I had only been personally impressed by Castle and Dragged Into Sunlight on Prosthetic’s roster post-2006.

Having listened to ‘Light The Way’ (2016 - Prosthetic Records), I wasn’t thoroughly convinced I enjoyed their interpretation, but endeavored to listen with open ears this night on tour. For North, they’re definitely a trio that transforms when they’re on stage. I let the first song marinate, and decided that Hansen immediately kicked my ass with his creative and interesting anatomy of fills and engaging dynamics. Usually percussion isn’t my favorite part of a performance to single out, but with this setup, his varying triplets, and almost tribal drum form around some of the lyrical verses were quite captivating.

Throughout the set, my eyes would wander between Leek and Mutterperl working the strings. Their gear (from drums to pedals) did not seem to have any vintage fit (minus Leek’s Thunderbird), which made me think they’re more innovative on their ability to create a new doom sound for North’s interpretation.

Unfortunately though, I was watching Mutterperl go through intricate double tapping, sweeps, the whole lot, all-the-while switching through his various FX pedals and simply could not decipher where this added to their sound. I turned my attention to Leek’s vocals, which told a very primal story of despair that should be heeded, should you face the same fate of your life decisions.

I’m still waiting to finalize my personal verdict on North, as apparently the patterns I was audibly awaiting could be heard towards the back of the venue (I didn’t make the decision to move from my chosen filming spot). For now, they’re great storytellers who still have many more tales to share with their fans.

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

Being an unabashed shield maiden, CONAN sits well in my mind and heart, and my body was ready for their imminent assault. Setting up was somewhat of a trial for them, as I and other fans lit our mobile-torches for Davis to maneuver his gear to his square-foot of performance space. All bands at this point were being quite good sports about the setup, and the crowd had pushed up the front row to nearly standing on Davis’ and Fielding’s pedal boards. Fog began to crawl its way across the stage and floor, and Conan opened with “Throne of Fire” from their latest album 'Revengeance’ (2016 - Napalm Records).

Many connoisseurs of metal often prefer a band’s first or second album to their latest, however, it was refreshing to hear how many supporters they had who wanted to hear everything they had to share. Davis’ first cries came out more distorted than I had heard before, but coupled with the devastating blows from Lewis, Conan was sonically threatening. As they moved through their set, I couldn’t help but notice how Fielding has these iconic lunges and his trademark footsteps-of-doom stance, wit coiled cabling oscillating around him. With Conan I was being transported over foreboding bogs and forests with Davis’ town crier yells ringing through steel gauntlets as they crash into your cheekbones. Conan’s combined pedal action and Worshipper Cab power erupted out nothing less than a lost ancient land.

The fog machine soon became obsolete. Conan brought England’s fog with them, which with all of the body steam, successfully fogged the windows with a heavier layer than Jack and Rose managed to whip up whilst on the Titanic. Needless to say, they played their heaviest “hits” from both 'Monnos’ (2012 - Burning World Records) and 'Blood Eagle’ (2012 - Napalm Records), with anthems like “Foehammer” and “Battle in the Swamp.” Conan proved why their fuzz and forlornly crafted compositions have reigned supreme for over a decade. Crom would have been pleased by their valor!

Follow The Band.

Hail CONAN!

If you missed Conan and North on tour in North America, you can catch them again at this year’s Psycho Las Vegas! Look for more Sixes events, as well, with updates posted here.

If we learned anything from the creative flurry of 2016, it is that the heavy underground scene is teeming with inspiration, creativity, joy, and madness. 2016 was an incredible year in terms of doom metal and stoner rock. It was also an exceptionally busy year, preventing me from reviewing many of the albums that made a big personal impact. However, this end-of-year list is the perfect opportunity to salvage all those loose drafts and ideas that have been stuck in my head for the last 12 months. And it was a task I was both looking forward to and dreading at the same time, considering the sheer mass of quality releases we were presented and my inability to call it quits after 20 or 25 records. I’ve spent the last few days in panicked last-minute listens, and you will always miss or forget an album or two. And just like last year, the ranking is mostly arbitrary. If you’re asking whether album number x is really better than album number y, the only answer you’ll get from me is: It made it into the list. It is worthy of your time and attention.

30. Youngblood Supercult – High Plains
(DHU Records)

Take a listen to “Monolith,” the second track on High Plains. The way David Merrill’s smooth, reverb-heavy singing just floats right into the song – it’s just one of many moments that make this record. High Plains is a major step up from Youngblood Supercult’s 2014 debut, and much of it owed to David’s sublime vocal work.

That doesn’t mean the rest of the band cannot stand strong on its own. “Stone Mountain Blues” sports a mean riff and the rhythm section keeps it heavy and steady over the length of 49 minutes. I could definitely see Youngblood Supercult being a bigger player in retro-occult rock, if they keep up the great work.

29. Ortega – Sacred States
(Consouling Sounds, Narshardaa Records, Tartarus Records)

If there are two things I love, it chugging guitars and tribal drums. Serve me up a combination of that pair and you’re guaranteed to grab my attention. Such is the case with Dutch band Ortega and their gargantuan new record, Sacred States. Over the length of 57 minutes these guys present a mixture of doom, post-sludge, and hints of noise compressed into one hefty punch. Even though songs such as “Strong Eye” never exceed mid-tempo, they have a remarkable amount of momentum and thrust, just steamrolling you for 10 minutes and then some. Sacred States could use some trimming, but all in all it’s one intimidating (and sadly very much overlooked) beast of an album.

28. Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – Y Proffwyd Dwyll
(New Heavy Sounds)

Doom metal is first and foremost the art of the riff. To write a good doom metal song is to write a great (which usually means a threatening) riff. Luckily this is something Welsh foursome MWWB, for the sake of brevity, is more than adept at. The band also knows how to make effective use of contrasts, with a ten-ton heavy production in the hands of doom’s greatest audio wizard, Chris Fielding, and Jessica Ball’s ethereal high-pitched croon that comfortably floats over the whole concoction.

And whilst I have grown tired of clichéd names like MWWB (which must be by all accounts of logic a play on said cliché), this band actually brings everything it claims, without drowning in a sea of samey sounding bands whose names must’ve been made up by the infamous stoner rock band name generator.

27. Church of Misery - …And Then There Were None
(Rise Above Records)

Whether you consider Church of Misery to still be Church of Misery after the departure of all the members except for Tatsu Mikami or not, …And Then There Were None is still a pretty damned fun record. The band (now more an American than Japanese act) employs Scott Carlson of Repulsion for the vocals, and he must’ve had a hell of a time recording this, seeming to take as much joy in sounding cruel as the serial killers he sings of – because above all, …And Then There Were None is a sadistic record. It sits atop a pile of rotten meat like a sardonic fly, with a big, mocking grin. It’s a nasty and fetid work, exactly what I expect from Church of Misery. And that “Yeah!” Scott rips out at the beginning of “Doctor Death” is just pitch perfect. It’s the small things that bring the spice.

26. Vokonis – Olde One Ascending
(Ozium Records)

Man, Olde One Ascending feels like a lost Sleep record. The inspiration is more than obvious – this is stoner metal par excellence. And yet, Vokonis don’t just contend with blunt riff worship; instead, they take Sleep’s formula and modernize it. Olde One Ascending is as much a look into the past as it is into the future, and a great one at that. If there is one minor complaint from my side, it is that the album is missing its own hit, its own “Dragonaut,” if you will; but only because all of the songs are of equal high quality. And who says that they will not drop the bomb with ‘The Sunken Djinn’ (2016) on their new label Ripple Music next year?

25. Fistula – Longing for Infection/The Shape of Doom to Cumm)))
(PATAC Records, Totem Cat Records)

No list would be complete without some nasty, nasty old-school sludge. Might as well reach for the good shit then, and luckily Fistula supplies us with not one, but two new releases this year. Both records kick off with killer songs, “Too Many Devils and Drugs,” with its hilarious spoken riff intro, and the merciless “Serial Vapist” (song title of the year), which takes down the riff worship culture respectively and keep it grimy and hateful over the length of both releases. Fistula doesn’t reinvent themselves on these albums, and why should they? They’ve been at it for 18 years now and are still going strong. And who doesn’t love a band with lyrics like “We are the dog shit on your shoe”?

24. Khemmis – Hunted
(20 Buck Spin)

'Absolution’ (2015) was one of my favorite records of last year, so my expectations for 'Hunted’ (2016) by Denver’s Khemmis were sky-high. And whilst many saw Hunted as an improvement, I cannot quite share those feelings. Like some other albums this year, Hunted seems to be somewhat lacking in terms of immediacy (which was one of the major strengths of Absolution). But I am complaining on a high comfort level; Absolution was an amazing record and Hunted is still pretty darn fantastic. After all, there are preciously few bands aside from Pallbearer who can bridge the gap between traditional and modern doom metal, let alone weave NWOBHM seamlessly into doom. In fact, Khemmis seems to be branching out on this record, and it certainly has its moments. The later parts of “Candlelight,” for example, are pure ecstasy. At the end of the day, I’ll take anything that comes from Khemmis.

23. Greenleaf – Rise above the Meadow
(Napalm Records)

Greenleaf’s fate up until 2014’s Trails and Passes (Small Stone Records), was more or less that of a side-project. The addition of Arvid Jonsson and his gravely howl resulted in one of the finest seventies rock records of the last few years. Now an established act after relentless, sly touring Europe for two years, it was time to write a new album. Meadow may lack somewhat in consistency (the first half of the record is nothing but greatness), but the songs that are good are pretty freaking amazing, and even the latter half has some decent material. Opener “A Million Fireflies” is driving and urgent, but it is above all heavy. One wouldn’t be able to call this retro rock, this is retro metal. Arvind’s soulful organ is the star, of course, but the riffage here is exquisite, as well – Tommi Holappa being one of the more underappreciated axe-wielders in stoner rock. Songs like the painfully short chug-and-hook-fest “Golden Throne” really sell this record. If only the standout tracks were spread out a bit better. Nonetheless, Meadow stands as one of the best retro records of the year.

22. 1000mods – Repeated exposure to…
(Ouga Booga and the Mighty Oug Recordings)

Not sure what’s in the water in Greece, but the country has proven to be one of the major driving forces in stoner rock for a good chunk of the decade. At the forefront of this new wave of stoner rock stand the Kyuss revivalists 1000mods. And their latest album, Repeated exposure to… is their most consistent and, frankly, best record to date. It’s heavy as hell, has a massive drive, and is basically just one steady stream of killer riffs. One could easily fault them for simply adhering to the standard stoner-desert rock formula, but the sheer quality of this album makes it more of a positive archetype and puts it beyond any criticism. It’s stoner rock done right. Simple as that.

21. Sunnata – Zorya
(Independent)

Seems like nothing but quality comes out of Poland these days. Sunnata is yet another band in the proud lineage of BelzebonG, Dopelord, and Weedpecker, delivering quality heaviness and putting their own twist on post-sludge metal. I cannot think of any band I could fully compare them to. Zorya is vaguely Neurosis-esque and the production reminds me of YOB’s Atma (one of my favorite records). All I can say is that Zorya is a beast of an album and entirely Sunnata’s own, down to the whole thing being self-produced and independently released. If you have appetite for some mind-bending heaviness with great vocals (these transitions from clean to harsh really do it for me), then look no further than Zorya. This is DIY done right. Plus, it’s got one of the best album covers of the year by Jeffrey Smith.

20. Holy Grove – Holy Grove
(Heavy Psych Sounds)

Holy Grove really knows how to make a lasting first impression. The Portland band took its merry time to release its debut, but it has been more than worth the wait. This is classic '70s hard rock of the highest order. The star is, of course, Andrea Vidal – she’s got a real set of pipes on her. There is nothing fragile about her singing; she embraces a mature, blues-rooted approach.

It’s a real joy listening to her belting and roaring, backed by a plethora of hooks and memorable riffs (plus some great basslines). Opener “Death of Magic” digs right into your brain, and the chorus of “Hanged Man” is an honest-to-heart earworm. No gimmicks here. As they proved at Hoverfest, Psycho Las Vegas, and their recent European tour with Gozu, these guys are real pros.

19. Red Fang – Only Ghosts
(Relapse Records)

I must admit, 'Whales and Leeches’ (2014), with the exception of a few songs (“Dawn Rising” with Mike Scheidt was amazing), felt like a step back after Red Fang’s classic first two releases. Only Ghosts is not quite yet a Murder the Mountains, but it definitely feels like Red Fang are back on track again. Opening up with “Flies,” Portland’s finest don’t take prisoners. Bryan Giles’ raucous barking brings the mission statement: they won’t leave until the house is brought down. Only Ghosts is generous on the riffs, and Aaron Beam immediately shows of his growth as vocalist on “Cut It Short,” spreading tasty basslines all over the album. If Only Ghosts is the start of an upward trend, then we may not be too far away from the best album Red Fang has ever done.

18. Grajo – Grajo
(DHU Records)

2016 was a tough year. Among the many musician casualties was Horn of the Rhino, one of my very favorite doom metal acts. Yet there is a new force to be reckoned with from Spain. Introducing Grajo, whose self-titled debut seems to be one of the most overlooked releases of the year. Building on a very dry and thick production, Grajo provides over a half-hour of enchanting psychedelic doom. The band doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the album is chock-full of infectious choruses and melodies, topped off with Liz’s hypnotic, reverb-laden vocals. And at the end of the day it is all a good doom record needs. Grajo is off to a promising start and I am left wanting more. I hope I don’t have to wait for too long.

17. Truckfighters – V
(Fuzzorama Records/Century Media)

Truckfighters like dancing on a razors edge. Their stoner-gone-prog-pop tendencies seem to have alienated a good part of their earlier fan base, but if the results are albums like V then it is a risk worth taking. V is the perfect marriage of the progressive leanings of Mania and Phi’s massive fuzz. Tool trips to the desert, if you will. Special praise goes out to the rhythm section. Considering the core team of Truckfighters in the resident fuzz-aficionados, Mr. Dango on guitar and Mr. Ozo on bass and vocals being such a tightly knit unit after more than 10 years of bandship, it must’ve been a hard for drummer El Danno to emerge out of the constant rotation of drummers the band goes through à la Spinal Tap and hit such a stride on this album. The chemistry between him and Mr. Ozo makes this album so great. This rhythm-section hits hard and so much harder thanks to the fantastic production. Songs like “The Fiend” and “Storyline” have such a massive bounce to them that I cannot help but love. Bravo, Truckfighters!

16. Boss Keloid – Herb Your Enthusiasm
(Black Bow Records)

Boss Keloid (already getting plus points for naming themselves after an Iron Monkey song) mellowed out in the weirdest way possible. Gone are the spastic, angular Crowbar-and-Mastodon-meet Dillinger-Escape-Plan riffs of their ingenious debut. Instead, Boss Keloid opts for a much different sound that is not any less intriguing. Opener “Lung Mountain” is big in every aspect, the composition, the soaring voice of Alex Hurst; the oriental scales and distortion do the rest. The whole album radiates a mystical vibe, yet it never betrays its own proggy roots, and never ceases to indulge in massive rolling grooves. It’s a brilliantly weird release with surprises at every turn, and it seems to fight against any and all means of being described. Its sound cannot be put into words so it is best if you listen to it by yourself. I, for one, cannot wait to see what Boss Keloid does next. It will be nigh impossible to say what it will be, but I am hyped for it.

15. Dunsmuir – Dunsmuir
(Hall of Records)

Neil Fallon is the King Midas of stoner rock. Whatever he touches turns into gold. So, what could his new super-group (one actually worth of the title) with Brad Davis (Fu Manchu), Dave Bone (The Company Band) and Vinny Appice (Ex-Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell) be but expertly crafted classic heavy metal and stoner rock? Admittedly, Dunsmuir still sounds a lot like Clutch, Neil Fallon’s bark being the kind of unmistakable spice you could spot in every dish it is put in, but Dunsmuir certainly sports a well-tempered metallic edge, backed by fantastic musicianship from all involved parties. My ultimate imaginary super group has always been Fallon and Iommi doing classic doom, and Dunsmuir is as close as it will get to it, for now at least. Besides, who doesn’t love a song like “Crawling Chaos”? It’s got Fallon singing about Lovecraftian gods and volcanos. That’s all I need for a mighty-rocking good time.

14. SUMAC – What One Becomes
(Thrill Jockey)

SUMAC’s sophomore album is easily one of the most fascinating albums of the year. I feel reluctant to refer to its individual parts as songs; pieces are a much more fitting description. Riffs have traded the place for textures, and the structures of each piece are ever shape-shifting. At one moment SUMAC will entice you with dreamy post-metal strumming, at the next moment they will blunder you with hellish chugs, aided by Aaron Turner’s death rattle. The production (with lots of natural reverb as it was recorded in an empty church) is nothing short of stunning with each instrument being thoroughly memorable in its unique tone. I dare say that What One Becomes is the best sounding record of the year, and I highly recommend you to get an LP copy of it. Believe me, it is worth it.

13. Neurosis – Fires Within Fires
(Neurot Recordings)

I must admit that Neurosis eluded me taste wise until recently. Ever since I “got it” my appreciation for the band has grown exponentially. Listening to albums like 'Souls at Zero’ (1992) and 'Through Silver in Blood’ (1996) has been an eye-opener for me, and I do now realize that most of the bands I adore wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for Neurosis. So, naturally, I was anxious to hear Fires Within Fires, which commemorates the 30th anniversary of the band. And the first thought that went through my head was, “That’s it already?” Fires is just 41 minutes long, which just feels a bit short for a band with a sound as grand as them. But Neurosis filled it to the brim with memorable moments, especially the majestic layered main riff of “Fire Is The End Lesson” that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Pallbearer album. Neurosis might have been around for three decades, but it does not stop them from providing strength and vision, and I am sure they will continue to do so for many years.

12. Brant Bjork - Tao of the Devil
(Napalm Records)

It seems like Brother Brant got his hands on a time machine, because Tao of the Devil sounds like a lost relic of the '70s, down to the way the drums were recorded. It is certainly not his first venture down that road, one has only to remember 'Saved by Magic’ (2005 - Duna Records), but Tao feels like a much more accomplished and concise effort. The grooves on this album are to die for, from the scintillating boogie of “Humble Pie” to the rolling “Stackt.” At this point in Brant’s lengthy solo career you either praise his consistency or accuse him of rehashing, but it most definitely doesn’t matter to the man himself, he just seems to be hell-bent on creating music he enjoys. And I am sure this joy and “apathy” (for the lack of a better term) is where he takes his coolness from, because just like all his previous releases, Tao of the Devil is very chill. It was made to kick back in a hammock on a sunny day with a cold one in hand.

11. Valley of the Sun – Volume Rock
(Fuzzorama Records)

An album title like that is a bold statement, but if there is a band out there that can live up to it, it is Valley of the Sun. Volume Rock is no nonsense, super-charged stoner rock in constant overdrive. No dull moments. No unmemorable riff. Songcraft is at an all-time high, as are Ryan Ferrier’s soaring vocals, and Aaron Boyer’s expressive, powerful drumming. The band just does everything right from the get-go, employing once again producer John Naclerio for a crystal clear sound. Whilst the majority of the album is played at almost nauseating speed (at least for stoner rock), the band certainly knows how to make use of slower tempos. The mid-tempo start-and-stop stomp of “Speaketh the Shaman” is, for the lack of a better term, epic. I know preciously few stoner rock bands that manage to capture such a grand sound.

10. Whores. – Gold
(eOne Music)

Holy shit, this is one pissed off album! I can certainly see where the reputation for the Whores. live shows comes from, and I don’t expect them to be any less wild on stage (Roadburn, here I come)! In fact, it sounds like the band wants to claw its way out of your speakers to eat your fucking face. If there is one minor complaint from my side, then it is that the production on Gold feels like a step back from their previous releases. As stupid as it sounds to complain about the production of a noise rock album, I cannot shake the feeling of the whole thing being unnecessarily muddied up. But at the end, this band is still the bastard child of Red Fang, Melvins, and a whole lotta noise on all the Adderall. Whores. don’t. fuck. around. Gold is angry. Gold is loud. Gold is noisy. Gold is all I could ask for from a rock record. Get it or miss out on this monster at your own danger (I am not sure which one is more detrimental to your health).

9. Mars Red Sky – Apex III (Praise for the burning Soul)
(Listenable Records)

Mars Red Sky are FAR OUT! It seems like they’re out to explore increasingly alien soundscapes with each new album, and Apex III is definitely their most experimental, diverse, heaviest, and paradoxically lightest work to date. In a step that probably few saw coming, Mars Red Sky started to venture into doom metal and, goddamn, can they be heavy and horrifying if they want to (see: “The Mindreader”). Yet, at the same time, they keep their catchy pop sensibilities and let loose chansons like only a band from sun-kissed Bordeaux can.

Julien Pras has grown considerably as vocalist, and remains a tap-dancing wizard on his pedalboard. Similar growth can be seen in Jimmy Kinast (bass) and Mathieu Gazeau (drums). Find me somebody else who can blend in blast beats as seamlessly into psych-rock like he can and I’ll be seriously impressed. Wherever Mars Red Sky’s ship flies to next, count me on board.

8. Slomatics – Future Echo Returns
(Black Bow Records)

Future Echo Returns has the density of a dying star in so many ways. The atmosphere. The heaviness. Hell, Slomatics are a major influence on Conan, whose Jon Paul Davis just so happens to be the head of Black Bow Records and contributed guest vocals on this album. It’s seriously spaced out, epic stuff. Just listen to a song like “Rat Chariot” or the majestic closer “Into the Eternal.” You can tell that all involved parties are experts at their craft, from the top-notch production (yet another winner from Chris Fielding) to the precision execution by the Belfast veterans themselves. This album is carefully thought out. It feels like each note and each word is exactly at the place where it should be. And on top of all, the record just flows smoothly from one track into another, as if it was meant to be taken in as a whole composition in one incredibly immersive experience. Just put on your headphones, close your eyes, and drop out of life (with choice paraphernalia in hand).

7. Mos Generator – Abyssinia
(Listenable Records)

Mos Generator has always been on the forefront of excellent seventies-style rock. Having frontman Tony Reed as a walking encyclopedia of that era certainly helps. Yet Abyssinia is so much more than a thick slab of heavy rock revivalism. What makes this record so great is how it refuses to be limited by the constraints of its genre. In a crowded field of Sabbath-rehashes, Abyssinia is a big breath of fresh air. In fact, it is an admirably progressive album, probably owing to Tony’s love for Rush and King Crimson.

After letting loose one belter after another, it is especially in the last third of the album when Mos Generator topples you over with surprises. “There’s No Return From Nowhere” can be ridiculously heavy and light as a feather. “Time and other Thieves” is, according to Tony, heavily inspired by Voivod, and the moody “Outlander” ranks as one of this year’s best ballads. Mos Generator may have gone through hard times (Tony being the only original member left now), but his new crew has come out stronger than ever. The future does look bright for the Generator Mk. II.

Credit: Chris Schanz

6. Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner
(Indie Recordings)

Opinions about metal are just as diverse as the genre itself. However, there seems to be a few things most people agree on, such as everybody loving Lemmy (we miss you). Another consensus seems to be about Cult of Luna’s collaboration with Julie Christmas (ex-Made of Babies, ex-Battle of Mice) being one of the best records of the year. And it has every right to be considered as such. Mariner is a post-metal juggernaut, as huge in tone as its synths are spacey. But what really elevates Mariner is Julie’s vocal work in conjunction with Cult of Luna’s own Johannes Persson. The sheer range of singing techniques she employs is stupefying, from unsettling high-pitched singing to hushes to dissonant shrieks. Her explosive timbre morphs with every second, making Mariner volatile and unpredictable from front to end. Mariner should be considered a landmark in metal vocals, and I feel truly blessed to have been able to witness the album being played live in full length just a few months ago.

5. SubRosa – For This We Fought The Battle Of Ages
(Profound Lore Records)

'More Constant than the Gods’ (2013 - Profound Lore Records) paved the way to the highest echelons of doom metal for SubRosa. That Olympus occupied by the chosen few: YOB, Pallbearer, and Neurosis. Now it was up to the SubRosa to once again fortify their position, something they’ve done formidably with their latest album. Though it does not have quite the same immediacy as its predecessor, it is still an emotionally devastating journey over the course of 70 minutes. Above all, it proves SubRosa’s songwriting mastery, from the harrowing lyrics, loud-quiet/melodic-unmelodic dynamics, and ever-wailing electric violins of Kim Pack and Sarah Pendleton, to the clever interplay of the vocalists (4 of the 5 band members). The atmospheres they create are thick, oppressive, and at times almost unbearable. If doom is so fucking beautifully bleak that it makes you almost want to stop listening, then you know that it has won the game. SubRosa is the sweetest torture.

4. Gozu – Revival
(Ripple Music)

I don’t know what it is with Gozu, but they remind me of the Joker. The fact that the LP version of their last (excellent) album, The Fury of a Patient Man came in purple and green, the Joker’s trademark colors certainly helps at that. Gozu is different than most bands. Gozu is stylish. Gozu is fucking nuts and on a killing spree in a tailored suit.

The Bostonian enfant terrible is back with its zany new album, Revival. The song titles are as weird as ever (“Bubble Time,” “Tin Chicken,” and “Lorenzo Llamas”) and Marc Gaffney’s soulful vocal performance, falsetto and crunch, is thoroughly unhinged. From the assaulting “Nature Boy” to the predatory “Big Casino Revival,” this album just does everything right. The solos are just the right amount of flashy, the production is bombastic and a joy to listen to. Gozu represents the very best rock has to offer to the current date. They’re an institution, and belong in one.

3. Inter Arma – The Paradise Gallows
(Relapse Records)

The Paradise Gallows is probably one of the most challenging albums of the year, at once embracing serenity and horror. In one moment Inter Arma’s latest LP sounds like a lost Pink Floyd studio reel, at the next hideous blackened doom dives into a hellish chasm of blast beats and anguished snarls. There are many bands that desperately fight being classified, but I feel the moniker “genre-defying” is one that has to be earned and with that, I’ll gladly bestow that mantle to Inter Arma. Stylistically, they paint with a gamut as wide as the stunning artwork by Orion Landau. Sometimes it feels like Inter Arma may choke on its own ambitions, and the way it’s drawn out accounts for a big part of the album’s challenging nature. Then again, I’ve lost count of how many hours I have put into listening to this record, and yet I still feel like I haven’t fully grasped The Paradise Gallows. If this isn’t a testament to its replay value, then I don’t know what is. By no means is this an easy listen, but by all means it is a masterpiece.

2. Conan – Revengeance
(Napalm Records)

Every year or so the monstrosity that is Conan will poke its three ghastly heads out of its Skyhammer Studios lair in northern England to take up their axes and man thee war drums for some seismic CAVEMAN BATTLE DOOM! (caps mandatory at all times). And once they have set this battering ram into motion, there are very few that can withstand their brutal amp-propelled inertia and live to tell the tale.

Revengeance, their newest declaration of conquest, goes harder than Arnie’s pegs, bathes in drop F tuned gore and glory, and shows off some fresh tricks thanks to the new rhythm section. More ferocious than ever, but not an ounce lighter. Verdict: louder than the lamentations of their conquered enemies, driving the competition before them to lay down their weapons in surrender. Dedicating a song with the title “Thunderhoof” to your old touring van spells a flawless victory in my eyes. Revengeance is riff-mongering of the highest order.

1. Elephant Tree – Elephant Tree
(Magnetic Eye Records)

It really speaks of your artistic merits when the British National Sound Archive decides to induct your work into its archives, to be preserved for future generations, making it part of Britain’s cultural heritage. I am not sure how the archive found out about Elephant Tree, but if there is one album that deserves this honor, then it is this one, for it is a veritable masterpiece of psychedelic stoner rock.

Marking a big shift in sound Elephant Tree decided to ditch the sitars and screams of its debut EP Theia, instead going for a much more streamlined approach. Breathtaking melodic vocal harmonies now reign supreme over the suffocating, fuzzy, and warm production. What they may have sacrificed in experimental sound has been replaced by deep songwriting, the quality of which should be nigh impossible to achieve for a band this young. At times, Elephant Tree seems like a Bizarro-Mars Red Sky, relying on the same heavy-light dynamics. Yet instead of becoming more experimental with each release, they’re just progressing into the opposite direction towards an uncertain destination. This destination, by all accounts, may very well eventually be the catchiest stoner rock album ever created.

Being a big fan of Theia, I knew I had something special in front of me even before I started listening to the first track, but I never expected the record to hit me as hard as it did. I had convinced myself early on in the year that Revengeance would be my favorite of 2016 since Conan happens to be one of my favorite bands. And though both records are almost at a tie, I just had to hand it to Elephant Tree – not because they’re the small guys, simply because they deserve it. End of discussion.

P.S. I apologize to those in my immediate circle for constantly raving about this record, but you know it to be true. I’d be surprised and disappointed if it isn’t at least considered to be a minor classic in the heavy scene in a few years.

But Wait! There’s More…

Not only would I consider 2016 to be a great year in terms of stoner-psych rock and doom-sludge metal, but heavy music in general. I’ve dedicated a lot of time exploring different genres and sub-genres this year, and I have found new tastes I cannot help but to share in the following honorable mentions.

Woman is the Earth – Torch of our final Night
(Init Records)

Spotting this rather oddly named album by this oddly named band from Rapid City, South Dakota in the feeds of some of my more black metal leaning friends made me curious. Little did I know that I was about to discover one of my absolute favorite records of the year, regardless of genre. I still cannot get a hang of a lot of black metal, but WITE’s atmospheric brand was immediately captivating in its strong contrast of beauty and harshness. Moments like the breathtaking climatic ending of “Brother of Black Smoke” still send chills down my spine after having listened to it countless times. If you have any appreciation for atmospheric music, be it black metal or not, you’d do yourself a disservice if you didn’t check out Torch Of Our Final Night.

Opeth – Sorceress
(Nuclear Blast)

I’ll be the first to say that I still miss death-metal Opeth. If you’re a death metal band who also happens to be a prog rock band, then you can sonically paint with a much wider palette than if you’re just a prog rock band (and being as diverse as possible seems to be kind of the idea behind prog). That being said, I was a huge fan of Pale Communion and Sorceress seems to be more of that, just a bit heavier at times. Will we ever get Growlpeth back? I don’t know, but I like a lot of what’s going on in Sorceress.

I’m a sucker for chug guitars, so the title track has my needs covered (an oddly blunt approach for Opeth), but also the lighter moments, like the beautiful waltz of “Will o’ The Wisp” know how to enchant. Not every track has lasting power, but overall Sorceress is a very solid record.

Batushka – Litourgiya
(Witching Hour Productions)

Technically Litourgiya was released in mid-December 2015, but to so little attention that most people didn’t catch up with the band until this year. Yet another band that left a lasting impression on me during my first venture into black metal Batushka play a very particular style of black metal (sung entirely in Russian) that relies heavily on the imagery of the Slavonic orthodox church, including chants and traditional priest garbs. The stage presence of the polish band (whose members remain anonymous) is a thing on its own, the live shows appear to be closer to processions, and similar things can be said about Litourgiya itself. Despite being black metal I found the album to be surprisingly accessible, thanks to the big, epic and at times doomy compositions. And the priest’s chants really are a class its own. Highly recommended.

Vermin Womb – Decline
(Throatruiner Records)

2016 was the year when I started to explore new genres. Always a sucker for a heavy musical pounding and already being a huge fan of Primitive Man’s life-weary and hateful sound, I found the perfect entrance into grindcore with Ethan Lee McCarthy’s other band, Vermin Womb. Saying that Vermin Womb is just sped up Primitive Man would sell the band below its value, but it gives a good idea what Vermin Womb sounds like. Hell. It sounds like hell. Decline grinds in more than one way. It is dark, it is chaotic, and it is downright terrifying. Ethan Lee McCarthy must be possessed by a wrathful deity, because that voice absolutely inhuman. This is really a record that will make you feel miserable and fear for your life, and that’s what I love about it.

Gojira – Magma
(Roadrunner Records)

Gojira is quickly becoming one of the biggest acts in modern metal, and Magma is without a doubt one of the biggest metal releases of this year. It surely was one of my most anticipated releases of 2016. And I was left being disappointed after my first listen through. The album lacked in technicality and heaviness, the things I appreciated Gojira most for.

Luckily I saw them play a good part of Magma live the very same evening, and it motivated me to dive into the record again, and it has really grown on me. This is a much more personal and intimate work (heavily impacted by the loss of Joe and Mario Duplantier’s mother), and I couldn’t fault the band for pouring so much heart into it. It is not the best thing they have ever done, but it is their most unique release to date.

Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä
(Svart Records)

Man, Värähtelijä is as weird a record as hard as it is to pronounce. This thing is all over the place in the best way possible. It’s a dazzling, disorientating, at times overwhelming work, and as manufactured as the moniker psychedelic black metal sounds, Oranssi Pazuzu really put a stamp on it. It’s constantly on the verge, and throws an endless stream of eerie synths, swirling guitar lines and alien sounds into your general direction, and it really sticks, creating these impenetrable soundscapes and layers upon layers of mind bending psychedelia. If you’re heads deep into psychedelic (and not fearing darker territories) or extreme music and haven’t listened to Värähtelijä then you’re missing out. This is both the best and worst trip you’ll ever have.

The Dillinger Escape Plan – Dissociation
(Cooking Vinyl/Party Smasher Inc.)

After 20 years of global stage annihilation mathcore legends The Dillinger Escape Plan have decided to call it quits. Those live shows must wear you out at some point, after all. Luckily TDEP have given us a farewell gift with Dissociation, and unlike many other farewell albums it is a great one. It seems like the band wanted to put in as many ideas as they had left over into this one final effort, without the resulting record being overly bloated.

For a band as spastic and eccentric as TDEP, it is commendable how they can establish such a massive groove despite all the breaks and staccatos, and Dissociation remains unpredictable and (emotionally) engaging at all times. And when the title track brings Dissociation to a close it does so with a teary eye and without pretense. This is how you put a seal on your legacy.

Alcest – Kodama
(Prophecy Productions)

If I had one word to describe Kodama, it would be beautiful. The latest album by the French blackgaze pioneers was a more than welcome return to Alcest’s black metal roots, yet they did not lose an ounce of their poise and sense of aesthetic. There is almost a certain playfulness to the serene reverberating leads that spread through the album, accentuated by Neige’s harsh screams and clean vocals. It’s dreamy, beautiful music to get lost into, yet it will not simply lull you with lush atmospherics. The music remains captivating at all times. There is a lot of thought behind each stroke of the album; Kodama is a carefully crafted piece of art, and may be Alcest’s best work to date.

Kvelertak – Nattesferd
(Roadrunner Records)

Kvelertak found itself at a point where they had to decide whether to stay true to their black metal roots, or continue down the path of classic rock, something many people criticized them for on their last album, Meir. But Nattesferd is all black metal, with a lo-fi production, blast-beats and the whole shebang. And yet it still is an incredibly catchy record, heavy on classic rock tropes. “1985” sounds like a throwback to its namesake, “Dendrofil for Yggdrasil” (what a song title!) is a true black metal rager.

“Heksebrann” may be one of the best songs they have done to date, and the mid-tempo closer “Nekrodamus” wouldn’t feel out of place on a stoner-sludge record. Nattesferd is a mixed bag, but it totally delivers the goods.

Zeal and Ardor – Devil is Fine
(Independent)

Devil is Fine by Zeal and Ardor was created out of a challenge on 4chan’s /mu/-board. I dare you to read up the whole history behind this release, but the result was an album that combines black metal, slave blues/gospel and trap music. The eerie gospel-esque chants and prayers sound as if they were recorded a long time ago, but are in fact relatively new (since satanic gospel is a bit of a rare commodity).

Lines like “A good god is a dead one, a good god is one that brings the fire” or “Burn the young boy, burn him good. Wash the crimson stains from the field” are incredibly sinister and make you feel as if you were trapped in a fever dream of an alternate history. I could write pages upon pages about this album, but it is really something that has to be heard to be comprehended.

You know I cannot finish this piece without mentioning several records from 2016 that also advanced the sound and scope of the heavy underground. Here are several of them:

Wo Fat – Midnight Cometh (Ripple Music)
Goya – Doomed Planet (Opoponax Records)
Pallbearer – Fear and Fury (Profound Lore)
High Fighter – Scars and Crosses (Svart Records)
Herder – Fergean (Reflectons Records)
Crippled Black Phoenix – Bronze (Season of Mist)
Church of the Cosmic Skull – Church of the Cosmic Skull (Kozmik Artifactz)
Crowbar – The Serpent Only Lies (eOne Music)
Geezer – Geezer (Ripple Music)
Beastwars – The Death of All Things (Universal Music New Zealand)
Cough – Still They Pray (Relapse Records)
Rising – Oceans Into Their Graves (Interdisciplinarian Records)
16 – The Lifespan of a Moth (Relapse Records)
Bossk – Audio Noir (Deathwish Inc.)
Messa – Belfry (Aural Music)
Salem’s Pot – Pronounce This! (Riding Easy Records)
Slabdragger – Rise Of The Dawncrusher (Holy Roar Records)
Perturbator – The Uncanny Valley (Blood Music)
Nails – You Will Never Be One Of Us (Nuclear Blast)
Vektor - Terminal Redux (Earache Records)
the body - No One Deserves Happiness (Thrill Jockey)
Black Tomb - Black Tomb (Independent)

Now, if you’ve been a brave trooper and made it this far, thank you for reading. I am certain I have missed a fair share of quality recording like I did last year with CHRCH, Coltsblood, and Intensive Square but we’re already looking ahead to an exciting new year, with 2017 yielding promise of new efforts by Sleep, High on Fire, Pallbearer, and Jeremy Irons & The Ratgang Malibus. I look forward to meeting you again this time next year!

‘Revengeance’ came out in late January. Stellar job by the way! Are you guys happy with the end result and fan response?

Yeah, totally! We’re really happy with how the music turned out. We recorded in our own studio . We didn’t exactly have a real clear cut and defined idea of what we wanted to do, we just started writing the music. Like the other albums, we just kinda wrote as it came to us. We’re just totally happy with it. The response from press and fans has been super cool. This is our first time coming up and playing those songs, so we’re still feeling our way through that. But to answer your question, yes. It’s been great.

How do you guys feel it compares with the rest of your discography?

I’d say it’s more aggressive. It’s heavier in places. The mix on the album is a little clearer, the other albums sound muddy in comparison - and that’s good because that’s exactly what we wanted. Chris Fields who now plays bass for us has been our producer all along so he’s been there many times in the past and knows us very well. I think this album sounds a bit more complex, more aggressive. It’s got a few more changes in pace compared to the others. I’d say it’s heavier. If you compare it with 'Monnos’ (2012), which was a very simple album if you look at how it’s constructed - I’d say this is a bit more sophisticated. A bit more clever.

Is it difficult for a band like Conan that’s so relevant in doom metal right now to continue to put out albums that offer something new?

Well, I guess so. I understand how one could think that. We wrote this album the same way we did the others. It’s a little bit like sawing through wood. If you push too hard, the blade gets stuck. That’s how we approach music. We get in the studio, we fuck around. We’ll sit down and drink tea for three hours if nothing comes around or we’ll get in there and like we did with the title track. We wrote that within the first fifteen minutes of being in the studio. It can just happen. I believe the key is just to not get too stressed over it. At the same time, don’t let any ideas go to waste.

Speaking of “Revengeance,” the track really stands out to me. I mean Rich [Lewis, drummer for Conan] goes crazy. I was really surprised because it’s much more aggressive and faster than we’re used to hearing from Conan.

It’s the same chords as “Grim Tormentor” for the opening riffs. So, I was just fucking around and Rich started playing blast beats over it and it was amazing. So we thought “Eh fuck it, why not?”. Plus, it just sounds great. We’re really happy with how that song came about. It also kinda set the scene for the album. No one can listem to that album and say we’ve never tried anything new. Without even trying to do anything new, we created a song that is something new. The album very much came together just like that. It nearly wrote itself.

Conan is often highly regarded in terms of your life performance. Do you find it a challenge to recreate that, night after night and live up to the hype?

Only vocally because the first few shows we had some serious jetlag. We don’t really have the jet lag anymore but it’s been a lot of really long drives and not much sleep which is the worst thing for my voice. That has been a big challenge. In terms of the actual performance, we just act naturally on stage. I remember driving a band called Sylosis who were a supporting act for a big name in Europe. I remember seeing this band on stage - I won’t name them - and I thought the singer was a really nice guy. But the next night, all of his stage banter was exactly the same. It was the same the next night, the night after…every single show. I thought that was total bullshit. Of course you rehearse the songs, you shouldn’t rehearse every word in between songs. That’s a bit weird. We just like we do in the practice room, maybe a bit more energy because you are performing. You get filled with more excitement than you do in the practice space. But, we don’t feel as if we need to recreate anything, we just kinda go with it.

There are so many new bands that are quick to call themselves doom that maybe aren’t, just downtuned rock and a few decent riffs thrown in.

It’s bullshit. It’s something I really hate.

So, what are your thoughts on the overall underground scene?

I’d say the underground scene is really healthy. There are so many cool bands

Almost too many. In a way, it’s very oversaturated.

In a way, yes. There’s a lot more bands, but there’s a lot more opportunities. There are so many bands starting out, hoping to play all these various festivals. They want a piece of that themselves. It’s easier for a band to start up now, it seems. Maybe there’s a bit more incentive because they see more and more festivals happening. But for the music scene, heavy music in particular is really healthy. I do agree with your previous statement though. You see a lot of bands pop up that call themselves a doom metal band but the only thing “doom” about them is that they play on a Gibson SG. Or they might wear a fucking Black Sabbath shirt or whatever. Then again, doom as a genre is quite broad anyway. People call us a doom band, but we don’t really think of ourselves as a doom band. I’m sure most people do, and that’s fine. We’re into this caveman battle metal and we’ve gained a reputation for that and we’re happy for that. But, we also want to be thought of us a heavy metal band in general. We’re musically heavy, which seems to be rarity in metal.

Are you surprised at the success Conan has experienced since 'Horseback Battle Hammer’ (2010)

Yes. Once you get to a certain point, things don’t really take you by surprise anymore. One year, you get asked to play a festival and it’s awesome. Then the next time you get asked, it’s not much of a surprise anymore. Things just don’t surprise you anymore, but we are still very happy for all of it. So to answer your question, we were surprised at first. We’re kinda just going with it now. We’re in this torrent of activity and we’re just really enjoying it for as long as it lasts. We just don’t treat things as a surprise anymore. We work really hard, so we deserve to support great bands. Keep in mind, that when we wrote Horseback Battle Hammer, it was just meant to be collection of songs that we had. I was just going to get them recorded, and it sounded fucking cool so we thought “What if we sent this out to a few labels?”….and a few labels got back with us and all of a sudden we had a record deal to release it with Throne Records in Spain, and that was a surprise. It kinda snowballed from there. Every day it fills me with happiness and I’m so grateful to be able to do this. It’s really fulfilling. It makes me so happy, but surprised probably isn’t the right word anymore. It’s just cool as fuck, let’s put it that way.

I’m a big fan of the splits you guys have done. If you were to do another split, which bands might you be looking at?

Loads. We’re not doing a split this year, but bands like Serial Hawk. They’d be a cool band to do a split with. Loads of other bands, I’d love to work with High On Fire, Sleep and bands of that caliber. I’d love to do a split with Nails. They’re brutal as fuck. That’d be a good mix. They probably wouldn’t be into that. Our experience is that you don’t do a split with a band just because you like them. When we did the split with Bongripper, it just kinda made sense because we were touring with them. I’m not sure whether we could even do a split right now because of the record and the contractual obligations we have with the label. We’re not sure if we’ve got space for it.

What’s next for Conan?

In April, we’re looking at a UK tour, followed by some other European shows. We’ll be going to Belgium then Spain, Portugal and then coming back. If that, I’ll be driving Samothrace on a UK tour. Samothrace and Conan will be joining up in May for some European shows. There will be a few festivals here and there throughout the summer. There will be another European tour in October. So touring mainly and we’ll see what happens next year and maybe get writing again next year. We’d like to release an album every two to two and half years. That seems to be the rhythm we’re in.

Perfect! I want to thank you for talking with Doomed & Stoned!

Thank you so much.