I’ve had my eyes on Valdese, North Carolina doom powerhouse APE VERMIN since their aptly titled debut LP Sonic Monolith in 2018 and then their pandemic EP Artic Noise in 2021. Now Brett Lee (vox, guitar), Jared Edge (bass), and Seth Lynn (drums) are back with the 10-track epic, ‘Andromedas Colossus’ (2024) – and trust me the album really lives up to its name. This is weighty, bruising, savage stuff.

The album begins with a sensory overload of amp worship and then a rumbling drum and bass attack, coupled with primitive uggs on “Obliteration Imminent.” If there were ever a Planet of the Apes band, this is it. The guitar tone is as piercing as a laser beam, with meaty riffs and a crunchy rhythm section that seems to summon fire and brimstone from on high. Furious raspy growls and howls breathe fire. Your obliteration is imminent.

“Colony” opens with a pleasant contrast via some acoustic strumming, joined in succession by a winding bass and heart-pounding, tribalesque drumming. Then things get electric with hard-charging proggy guitar attack. There’s a certain Mastodon feel to the vocals (reminding me of Crack The Skye), which toggle between clean and sludgey. At this point in the record, you can really sense an apocalyptic urgency to the pacing and the lyrics have definite sci-fi implications. This one could really rev up a crowd during live shows, as it’s both intense and exciting.

Dramatic feedback ushers us next to “Solaruss”, another cosmic barnstormer with a contrasting A-B section, rapid fire drumming/ basswork, and stormy guitars. You sense The End is quite near.

“Pulse Driver” commences with scraping, downtuned strumming, reminiscent of Soundgarden’s “Fourth of July,” augmented with wicked squeaking strings. Cymbals resound and the drum beats are slow and emphatic, as though we were awaiting lift off as a rocket is being fueled and the countdown methodically ticking.

“Mining the Colossus” is exciting to imagine conceptually, in terms of the exploration and exploitation of near space objects. Sure Bruce Willis made it look like a piece of cake to drill into an asteroid in the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon, but I imagine there would be high costs to equipment, labor, and life to make this reality. There is a slow-building swagger to the song, with expressive and dizzying axe-handling that works in tandem with grave vocals. As always, there is a massive undertow of percussion. “We’ve been mining the Colossus” lament the workers, “mining for far too long.”

We’re now at the half-way point and an interlude, “Signal Transmissions” takes us to the flip side with pedal effects that represent strange noises, sputters, and undeciphered messages. I’m not a huge fan of noise, but here it is compelling and breaks up the album nicely (it’s also the shortest track at 2:45).

“Motherlode” is the longest track at eight-and-a-half minutes, and probably refers to striking a rich vein of ore on Colossus. This is it! This is what they’ve come for. “Hail to the motherlode!” frontman Brett Lee rasps. More riff worship on this track, both immersive and hypnotic. There is a doomy midsection that summons Electric Wizard, but departs with a grizzled, deranged vocal approach. Fans of guitar solos will find a beefy one here, which ushers us to the outro.

“Awakened” leads the final trio of songs, ratcheting up the tempo with machine-like ferocity and what sounds like a gong or tam-tam. I enjoyed what the guitars were doing here, with some excellent pick-ups that recall Dimebag Darrel of Pantera/Damage Plan. I imagine this track could easily make its rounds to podcasts and playlists, as both a fitting introduction to the Ape Vermin sound and a manageable listening duration.

“Unearth the Artifact” hints at an Alien/Prometheus-like discovery lying just beneath the crust. My thoughts also travel to the lesser known 1996 sci-fi/horror film Within the Rock, which tackles space mining, and of course the 1981 Sean Connery film Outland. “Discover the origins of the bloody stone, conjuring the evil from within. Defining the marker of this realm, unearthing the artifact from within.” It’s an ominous number that takes its time to develop and reinforce its ideas, finishing up with acoustic strumming and plucking.

At last we’ve reached the final destination, “Return to Andromeda”. There’s hopeful marching cadence, riffs that are simply unrelenting, and clean, low, melodic singing. Perhaps the ship is taking off with what remains of the colony and doing so with a sense of focused mission, a “return to eternal life.” This one I found myself humming a lot after the spin.

Ape Vermin’s Andromedas Colossus is doom to the core. Though a lot for one sitting, it’ll sustain your attention during a long walk or drive. Fans of the genre will find much to relish, be it individual tracks or the whole, and it’s certainly one of the standout albums of the year so far. Look for its independent digital release on Friday, May 16th right here.

Doomed & Stoned readers hear the album first! Stick it on a playlist with High on Fire, Conan, Crowbar, Serpentine Cult, and Temple of the Fuzz Witch.

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

Ape Vermin is an American 3-piece metal act delivering a hellish avalanche of sludge with progressive and thrash tendencies. Hailing from Valdese, North Carolina, the trio is composed of guitarist/vocalist Brett Lee, drummer Seth Lynn and bassist Jared Edge. They vow to continue pushing the boundaries of the genre with 'Andromedas Colossus,’ a thrilling, space-themed concept album that is out on May 17th. Lee speaks on the record and it’s potential reception:

“This record is going to be well received by most of the ‘Metal’ Community. We are a Sludge metal band pushing the boundaries with progressive and thrash metal as well. Fans can most definitely expect more crushing material from us, we have a lot of stuff on the line for the next LP as well.”

Across ten tracks, listeners will encounter an atmospheric and tribal acoustic intro that gives way to crushing metal with a machine gun-like double bass. Evil instrumentals and guitar leads reminiscent of Dimebag Darrell and Kerry King in their prime and enough low-end to destroy planets.

Inspired by outer space phenomenon, extra-terrestrials, prehistoric tales, murder, psychedelics, and sci-fi horror games, “Andromedas Colossus” will take listeners on an expansive voyage into the unknown. This album is extremely dynamic, melodic, visceral, and brutal and the lyrics are extremely dark. It is recommended for fans of Mastodon, Yob, and Conan.

Ape Vermin 'Riders of the Damned’ Tour

5/17 Spartanburg, S.C – Ground Zero
5/18 Jacksonville, FL – Jack Rabbits
5/19 Tampa, FL – Brass Mug
5/21 New Orleans, LA – The Goat
5/22 Houston, TX – Black Magic Social Club
5/23 Fort Worth, TX – Haltom Theatre
5/24 San Antonio, TX – Bonds Rock Bar
5/25 Laredo, TX – Cold Brew Rock Bar
5/26 Austin, TX – Valhalla
5/28 El Paso, TX – Rockhouse Bar & Grill
5/29 Tucson, AZ – The Rock
5/30 Phoenix, AZ – Blooze Bar
6/1 Richmond, CA – Baltic Kiss
6/2 Reno, NV – Alturus Bar
6/4 Salt Lake City, UT – International Bar
6/5 Casper, WY – The Gaslight Social
6/7 Ridgeway, CO – The Sherbino
6/8 Denver, CO – Hermans Hideaway
6/12 Asheville, N.C – The Odditorium

Y'all know by now that I’m a sucker for a good conceptual album, one that really tells a story through interlocking songs and immersive ideas. Whether that be more mainstream examples such as Mastodon’s Crack the Skye, subterranean classics such as Sleep’s Dopesmoker and Slomatics Strontium Fields, or lesser known gems like Underground by Trippy Wicked & The Cosmic Children Of The Knight. There are actually more sci-fi and fantasy albums in the stoner-doom scene than one might expect, and an album that does it well is worth remembering.

Hailing from Verona and killing it since 2005, today we witness new sounds from five-piece stoner metal crew KAYLETH. We featured the band on our compilation Italy Strikes Back, and now they make a post-pandemic return with a sequel to their last sci-fi themed narrative 2020: Back To Earth.

Kayleth’s next chapter is entitled ‘New Babylon’ (2024), and the cover art really says it all: astronauts riding theropods, ufos hovering over bleak, explosion-pocked landscapes, mysterious orbs shooting lasers, and creatures of undefined origin descending from the sky. All fight for dominance over a strange planet.

“The Night” is the first single, presented here as an animated music video. An adventurous youth leaves his clandestine bunker, hops onto his speeder joined by his small robot friend, and takes a trip out into a post-apocalyptic world surrounded by ruined buildings drowned in water. Along the way, he encounters kaiju, muddy giants, and other menaces, ultimately finding his way deep into city caverns to emerge with a Pacific Rim style Jaeger that does battle with the dreadful blue cyclops.

Musically, the song starts out with a determined drumbeat accented by a bobbled synthesizer. Pulse-pounding proggy guitar riffs hint of danger. Powerful vocal harmonies soar above the morass. Next there is a transition into a second theme, this time more downtuned, doomy and consequential. The track fades out to accompaniment of epic woahs and ahs.

As with their three previous full-lengths, Italian label Argonauta Records will be issuing Kayleth’s New Babylon. Look for news of the release date, formats, and pre-order specifics at the label’s website and on the band’s socials.

Stick it on a playlist with Sunnata, Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, Cosmic Reaper, and Vinnum Sabbathi.

Give ear…

The Band Speaks on 'New Babylon’

It has now been four years since our return to earth in '2020 Back to Earth.’ There we had found a cold and inhospitable place, humanity was inexorably channeled on the path to extinction. We therefore decided to flee immediately in search of another planet where we could dwell.

We therefore came to New Babylon, a planet inhabited by humanoids but also by monstrous and ravenous creatures. There are “giants” that march about raising immense clouds of dust, stealing and plundering everything from people. Giants much like our corporations, they know no defeat and have no weaknesses, at least apparent ones.

There are old warriors like jarek who wait for war to feel like heroes, to feel alive. They find their dimension within the battle, where the line between hero and assassin magically blurs.

There are pyramids erected by men who think they are gods and turn the things life gives them into weapons and death, changing their use and meaning. Little men who think themselves omnipotent, burying knowledge of how life works under piles of lies.

We find a myriad of slaves, surrendered to live in huge troughs. They toil at nothing and find meaning in nothing. They prefer a convenient lie to an inconvenient truth.

In short, we realize that we have arrived in a world very much like earth. We are aliens but in a certain way we feel at home. We want to know, to understand, to evolve. We don’t recognize ourselves in this deceived humanity, we don’t give in, we believe. Nature, life is wonderful but when one thing loses its usefulness life gently explains to it that it is time to make room for something else. This existence has already been explained to the dinosaurs.

Kayleth continues their journey, never stopping because whoever seeks will find itself.

It’s rare to have so big an ensemble in a doom metal band, which makes six-member crew THEY WATCH US FROM THE MOON doubly exciting to witness as a live act. The Lawrence, Kansas act matches sick downtuned doom-stoner riffs, rumbling bass, and stalwart drumming with dual female vocals, which gives their sound an elevated atmosphere that’s at once entrancing and spine-tingling.

Today, Doomed & Stoned brings you the world premiere of the stargazing new music video “Space Angel,” a song which has been one of my personal favs from Cosmic Chronicles, Act I: The Ascension. The imminently relistinable record dropped almost a year ago on New Heavy Sounds.

“Space Angel,” distinguished by transcendent vocal harmonies and galactic low-end, advances the narrative of the album, which is also illustrated in a graphic novel. The band had this to say about:

We now see our young heroes being subjected to a top secret Government Remote Viewing study after the discovery of their involvement in an abduction. All under the watchful eye of the secret space program. What’s next for our young heroes? Stay tuned for an all new adventure…. Rise of the Blood Moon Cult.“

You can lay hold of They Watch Us From The Moon’s monumental LP here and . As an aside, this spin also makes a fitting companion to the 2010 faux documentary film Lunopolis.

Give ear…

Since the dawn of time,
Mystics have foretold the coming
of the Froglord
An ancient amphibian with death ray vision
and ectoplasm slime…

Behold, the mighty FROGLORD has returned! We first met the Bristol bunch in these pages when they split an album with Bog Wizard, then again for our compilation, Doomed & Stoned in England, Vol. II. Now they’re back with 11 new tracks, ‘Sons of Froglord’ (2023), each one linked to overarching plot (the saga now spanning four records):

500 years before ascension, Froglord tires of wordly trappings and so departs into the wilderness. There, the great Wizard Gonk awaits, a mighty guide through this garden. Together they seek its forbidden fruit: the Road Raisins. Once found, the flesh is consumed, giving way to visions of a coming collapse. The sound of The Amphibian can be heard, calling to the sage, and the Froglady’s embrace guides him back to earth. Returning to the world on a Wednesday, he knows he must hold on till the lord cometh. Till that time, the mind must be honed and create a swamp of its own.

The content really delivers on the storyline, too. “Wizard Gonk” is a riff-driven romp with foot-shuffling stride and deadpan, shoegazy vocals on the order of Depeche Mode. “Garden” is a dank one for sure, donning bluesy guitar, strident rhythm, and a fist-raising chorus. “Road Raisin” couples humid Kyuss guitar tone with an easy-going desert rock tempo and mysterious, doomy vox. Speaking of singing, “Collapse” features grisly pipes that remind me of Neal Fallon’s early work. Many tokes will be taken, surely, early on in this album.

It’s not all an anuran fantasy, however. “Wednesday” is an ultra cool rocker a la Velvet Revolver about riding through the midweek blues. And the album closes with a nod to the CCR classic, “Born On The Bayou,” giving it the Froglord treatment with gutsy drumming, smooooooth bass work, stinging guitar, and crooning that tells us we’re deep into marsh country now and there ain’t no returning.

Sons of Froglord is an up-beat romp through the swamp, ideal for baking on your favorite lilly pad. Look for the Froglord’s latest release on Friday, July 7th (pre-order here). Stick it on a playlist with Deep Purple, Clutch, Merlin, Geezer, and Forming The Void.

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

During the pandemic as a one-man project, Froglord released their first EP in 2020, followed soon after by a full-length album 'Amphibian Ascending.’ Through their infectious grooves, storytelling, and DIY music videos, Froglord quickly amassed an online cult-like following. After the release of their second album 'The Mystic Toad’ a year later, Froglord developed into a full 4-piece band as live venues began to reopen.

Since then, Froglord have released a further EP, split record, a single, and two more full-length albums: 'Army of Frogs’ and 'Sons of Froglord.’ During this time, Froglord has quickly gained a reputation for their commanding and theatrical stage performances.

Whilst Froglord’s sound leans primarily toward stoner doom, they have been characterised for their genre-bending sound, with each album taking on it’s own distinct style, taking strong influences from psychedelia, prog, sludge, grunge, groove and blues to deliver the tale of The Froglord through a concept-based discography.

Rooted also in environmentalism, Froglord has worked closely with Save The Frogs, the world’s largest amphibian-based conservation charity, raising over £2500 through 'Save The Frogs’ EP sales and campaigning, as well as £300 for the Human Dignity Trust through merch sales.

I haven’t had this good of a time since watching Hell Comes To Frogtown, and more recently the awful sequel Frogtown 2 (which has somehow endeared itself to me). As long as we’re talking about frogs, wait’ll you get a load of the record we’ve cued up for you today.

‘A Frog in the Bog’ (2022) hosts two of doom’s dankest acts separated by an ocean’s expanse: FROGLORD situated along the River Avon in Bristol, England and BOG WIZARD hailing from the Michigan habor.

Envisioned as a concept album, this split LP relates the story of “the Froglord and his congregation trespassing into the Bog Wizard’s swamp, and the ensuing confrontation between the two.” High drama ensues! You’ll hear several tracks in which vocals are shared, which I think was a master touch as it gives the record a unified and cohesive feel from side-to-side…not to mention that it sounds simply monstrous.

The troupe tells Doomed & Stoned:

We’re really proud of what we put together, musically and narratively, it ended up being a lot of fun to do, and we’re hoping it will be just as fun for listeners.

There are tons of memorable musical moments too, some of which are imminently quotable, such as the unholy chant: “Bow down to the power of the Froglord.” There’s even a You son of a bitch! moment that rivals Predator’s Arnold Swarzenegger on its delivery. Clever instrumental touches, samples, and pedal effects immerse us fully in the murky mystery of the fetid swamp. “What is it? The bog of eternal stench!” The net experience is not only fun, but quite powerful.

Look for A Frog in the Bog to gurgle up April 1st on limited edition vinyl, CD, and cassette via The Swamp Records (pre-order here, here, or here). In the meanwhile, Doomed & Stoned is giving you a chance to revel in all the mud and magic a day ahead of time!

Give ear…

Official Guide to the Battle

A Frog in the Bog is a collaborative concept split album. What that means is that this split has been written from the ground up to tell a cohesive story. Both halves of the split feature shared vocal parts between the bands, in the conclusionary tracks.

Bog Wizard and Froglord are both very narratively driven bands, telling tales of their respective characters. The Froglord is a god-like swamp dwelling being with a congregation of worshippers and followers. The Bog Wizard is an angry hermit wizard whose only preferred company is the creatures he summons to do his bidding, and he’s highly protective of his territory.

A Frog in the Bog tells the story of their fateful meeting, as the Froglord encroaches into the Bog Wizard’s well-guarded territory with his congregation, from each of their unique perspectives. It describes the Bog Wizard’s anger as he realizes this being has intruded on his land, the curiosity of the Froglord as to who and what lies in the swamp, their ultimate battle, and face to face meeting. Who will win?

“Reptilian Death Squad”

With the intention of protecting his domain, the Bog Wizard has set out a lineup of loyal lizardmen to patrol the Swamp of Doom, and the news they bring back is quite the opposite of what he wished to hear.

“The Frog Lord”

The Froglord and his followers have intruded, seeking to gain territory! This cannot stand of course, and after some observation, the Wizard decides to force a confrontation with the group. What will happen? Will one best the other? A true battle of two great powers shall commence!

“The Bog”

After overthrowing the humans and defeating the alien invaders, Froglord stands as ruler and protector of the earth. But rumours of a powerful bog creature begin to rise. Summoning his closest Sages, Froglord sets off to discover the mysterious creature and destroy it before it can rise to power.

“The Wizard”

As Froglord and his Sages enter the great Swamp of Doom after wandering far and wide, the swamp creatures inform the Froglord of a great wizard that lies at the heart of the swamp. As they descend deeper and deeper, shadowy figures dart through the undergrowth…watching…leading them further in.

“The Bog Wizard”

The air grows heavy and stale. As the dense trees begin to part, Froglord and his Sages gaze upon the great swamp. In the centre stands a creature, covered in moss with hollow, empty eyes. The Bog Wizard! Froglord steps into the bog. Battle has begun!

10,000 YEARS announces the end of a trilogy that began in July of 2020 with the EP 10,000 Years and carried on in June of 2021 with the full-length record II.  Now the Swedish stoner-sludge and doom metal mayhem makers are readying a capstone:

We are extremely proud to announce that June 24th will see the arrival of our new album ‘III’ (2022). This is the third record we’ve done in two years and it is the final chapter in what’s become known as the Albatross Trilogy. We firmly believe that this is the crowning achievement of everything we’ve done so far, and we hope that you will enjoy it as well.

Emerging this summer, III is a 10,000 Years fantasy epic for the ages. Today, Doomed & Stoned gives you an exclusive first-listen to hear the album’s premiere single, “The Green King Rises” (available for download this weekend).

The song gives us an inkling of the album’s robust appetite for romping madness and destruction. Each verse chronicles the royal’s devastating exploits. He surveys his conquest confidently atop a slow-chugging hooded steed. The roaring siren sound of his guitar proclaims a fearsome new era to dwellers nearby. A must for fans of High on Fire, Black Tusk, and Trap Them.

You might also be interested in knowing that there will be vinyl, CD, and cassette releases of the album (digital too, of course). And because I like to nerd out about these things as much as you, here are the details:

• Cosmic Horror Edition vinyl from Interstellar Smoke Records. 12" purple vinyl with black splatter, A3-poster, and 2-sided insert.
• CD from Death Valley Records. Limited to 100 pieces, including exclusive woven patch.
• Limited Edition cassette tape from Olde Magick Records. Clear tape with cosmic glitter housed in a classic-style case.

Give ear…

With the world stage being a mess of war and plague, there’s never been a better time to get lost in a concept album. Oakland’s DUNGEON WEED have the perfect escape in the sequel to 2020’s Mind Palace of the Mushroom God, their debut full-length. This time, the band has geared up to bring us 16 hefty tracks, in the 2XLP, The Eye Of The Icosahedron (2022).

The album stretches and groans to a start with One Thousand Years Alive. Massive doom chords shift like tectonic plates, while frenetic guitar noodling lets down a torrent of rain in the backdrop. An immortal voice narrates the opening crawl:

One thousand years. One thousand years alive. Centuries pass like drifting leaves on indifferent wafts of time. Alive in decrepit solitude, alive with no end in sight. Unbearable bleakness day after day, interminable consciousness night after night, trapped in a never-ending nightmare life. A desolate millennium of wan awareness, power and strength mere shadows of the past. Caliginous thoughts drift beyond recognition while tenebrous winds chill my soul and the residuum of my heart. Dynasties rise and fall, there’s never any change, things just rearrange. This curse an unbearable weight.

Without so much as the usual five seconds of nothingness between tracks, the first song bleeds right on into the next. Frontman Dmitri Mavra explains: “This album is more of a continuous story, one song flowing into the next. The story consists almost entirely of the lyrics.”

The Dream of the Eye of the Icosahedron is the closest we’ll come to a title track. We also get to hear how “icosahedron” is pronounced, in case you were stressing out about it. It’s a reference to a complex geometric shape, which here seems to take on distinct mystical and metaphysical properties.

Then one night it came to me, a vision in a dream. A damsel with a dulcimer, sang in an unknown tongue to me. Seven nights she came to me, Seven nights I dreamed, floating in a crystal sun that shined so bright I could hardly see. I could not understand any word, nor any phrase but one: The Eye of the Icosahedron.

A short instrumental, Mesonoxian Revelations, introduces the next major track: “The Invocation of Y'ag Z'gyroth.” I’m no scholar when it comes to Lovecraftian lingo, but this sure feels like it belongs in the extended lore of the Great Old Ones. The mood is spiked with fear and dread, something summoned most effectively by the melancholy angst of Thia Moonbrook’s vocal approach. We also get a good dose of Rama’s prowess on the keys, which rounds out the atmosphere nicely with distinctive otherworldly touches.

These mesonoxian revelations weighed heavily on my thoughts. Drawing on the tattered remnants of my sorcery, I invoked the odious demon Y’ag Z'gyroth from the necrotic depths of the nether plane and commanded him to instruct me on the meaning of this mysterious phrase. In a loathsome voice the demon explained that it was a crystal of twenty sides, forged by the elder gods at the dawn of time and hidden deep in the Psionic Abyss, where mind is outside of time and time has no meaning. “Look into the eye and see all twenty planes of reality,” Y’ag Z'gyroth croaked as it faded from sight.

Dream Powder doses us up with psychedelics, and gives us just enough time to catch our breath before the trip begins. Next we set off Beyond the Door of Meta-Consciousness. Here Dmitri juts out some sinister shredding on the guitar, while drummer Chris McGrew keeps our psychonautic engines chugging along with deep, muscular skin tones.

I stirred myself to action despite the suffocating weight of a millennium. I procured the proper ingredients to mix a dream powder of sufficient potency to send me down into the blackest depths of my innermost consciousness. Soon I was sinking in a vast ocean of impenetrable thought and feelings that I could no longer comprehend. In the distance I saw a glowing door but I feared it would lead to the other side of my consciousness. Going down even deeper, spiraling through the fragments of dreams and memories that pass like falling stars, I had no choice but to step through the door. I did not know if I could survive to the other side. Like falling slowly in a dream down an infinite shaft of nothingness, cold and without meaning, from which nobody returns alive.

We’re now nearing the end of the LP’s first-half, at which point we go through a harrowing Descent into the Psionic Abyss. Last year, Spelljammer explored the metaphor of the ocean in Abyssal Trip. On this track, Dungeon Weed venture into the endless abyss of the human psyche. I love how it’s described, too:

Within the Psionic Abyss, psionic vibrations no longer pulse, suspended in the uncaring void. But at last I had pierced the veil of liminal perceptions. They say no man who wants to live can return from this realm. I alone, he who cannot die, am the only one who can survive. I wandered the inner maze of the outer mind, lost among the infinite possibilities until at last, through dumb luck or the guidance of some unseen hand, I reached the center of the maze. There before me towered a cyclopean mountain of putrid slime, poisonous quivering ooze, a gelatinous vault of doom. I saw the crystal hidden inside, shining bright inside the beast. The Eye of the Icosahedron was nearly within my grasp. This was my very last chance, as the creature tried to feast upon my soul, I had nothing left to lose.

Dark and brooding, we’re plunged deeper into innerspace with The Inner Maze of the Outer Mind and the Gelatinous Vault of Doom. This trio of pieces share similar lyrical elements as the excerpt above, preparing us for a climactic finale: Mesmeric Scintillations.“

At last I gazed upon the shining stone, ensorcelled by its mesmeric scintillations. Now I could finally see all realities in these twenty shining facets, and all of them were me. My very own reflection is all that I could see, sitting in my chamber about to cast the spell that led me right to Orcus and one thousand years of hell.

The riffage here is truly massive and I can see this tracking becoming a new classic among doom metal lovers. I binged on it hard this week and it holds up pretty darn well to repeated listens. Here’s where a word like epic is quite appropriate, with its colossal gong strikes, dungeon synth, devilishly downtuned guitar licks, mighty heartbeat, and plaintive singing style.

Hypnagogic Revelations serve as another bridge to yet another plane of existence, Twenty Planes of Reality to be exact. Here, the words hearken back to "The Invocation of Y’ag Z’gyroth” as we get deeper into the second record of this double album.

In the final stretch of our expedition, we meet with a Time Crash. The robust interplay of bass and drums sets a groovy, if lumbering, stride that is ideal for Dmitri Mavra to cut loose again with more wild guitar play. Lots of jazzy touches here, too, and by the end of the song I feel justified in dubbing this acid doom.

Crashing through explosions of memories in reverse, a madman’s laugh of terror in every single verse. To live it all again, even in a flash, when all I really wanted was to forget at last. Spinning through forgotten decades, falling through time, reliving living the millennium, psionic wormhole dreams go flickering by, anamnesis flashback vision blinding my mind’s eye.

If the last track was boyountly jazzy, Forgotten Chambers really brings out the blues. The guitar is no less shy here than it was previously, and here it doubles down on the sauciness as we inch ever closer to the penultimate track, Chronotopic Revelations.

I look around me, what do I see? A forgotten chamber and fallen dreams. From the time before the curse. From another time. One thousand years alive, and yet all those years did not exist. The gods are laughing because they’re playing tricks. So much was lost in the flood of memories, like when you said that you would wait for me. Or that look upon your face at my return, at my disgrace.

Another instrumental (and an unsettling one, at that) the song readies us for the finale, Return To Forever Sleep, which consists of one simple, grim line of expression:

I put the poison to my lips, to sleep forever is my only wish.

Dungeon Weed’s The Eye Of The Icosahedron is a weird, wonderful ride that keeps you constantly glued to the edge of your musical chair. You simply want to know what happens next and it makes the duration of this lengthy work well worth listening to in one uninterrupted sit. The ending seems less climactic and more on the order of “to be continued,” so I imagine we can look forward to a third volume if this chemistry continues.

The record enters our world today via this Doomed & Stoned premiere, but it will be dropping real soon in digital and compact disc formats (get it here), as well as on vinyl via Forbidden Place Records (pre-orders begin 3/3/22).

Give ear…

Great things come from Kansas, and not just Superman. Here’s a band that embodies the spirit from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, which sparked our fascination with worlds unknown and made us believe interstellar travel was not only possible, but inevitable. In fact, I have an urge to thumb through vintage issues of DC Comics’ Strange Adventures whilst listening to THEY WATCH US FROM THE MOON. The six-piece team from Lawrence (which we introduced you to previously in these pages) supply us with ample fuel for the imagination in their latest offering, “Return To Earth.”

I got a chance to audit the song a few months prior and was excited to share it right then and there! What amazes me is how well it’s held up between listens. Not only that, but I wanted to play it back-to-back on hearing it afresh. “Return To Earth” is a magnificently constructed song, with vocals that are at once sublime and magical.

The dark, plodding riffage (accented by solo work that dabbles in the same beautifully dour palette as Alice in Chains) generates something quite epic in its own right. As a matter of fact, this would make a wonderful anthem for some expansive new sci-fi flick or even one of the many neglected silent-era films that dabbled in outer space adventure.

Lyrics paint a picture of urgency, with hints of uncertainty. So much could go wrong in this retreat from the ancient satellite, but the mission must continue at all costs:

Blinding fast
Pray the jets lasts
Straight from the Moon
Don’t kill the rockets too soon
Keep life support online
Moon magic blessings
Keeps us alive
Take me home

Its doom-paced tempo is ideal for the spacecraft’s slow approach to Earth. The sense of anticipation and hope is not only palpable, but at times electrifying. Yet there are still many questions about the state of the planet we are returning to. This, beloved Doomers & Stoners, is where the story will be continued in the year 2022! “Return To Earth” by They Watch Us From The Moon is a fine choice for fans of Soundgarden, Mastodon, Slomatics, and MWWB.

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

“Return To Earth” is the new single from heavy psych doom metal space project, They Watch Us From The Moon. Landing ahead of their upcoming album in Spring 2022, the dynamic collective of seasoned musicians, powerhouse vocal talent and a visual Sci Fi stage show has seen the project take off into orbit.

“We are incredibly excited to release the first single off our new album,” says the band. “Return To Earth is the perfect song to showcase our new sound. After wood shedding through the worst of the pandemic we are very proud of the work we have accomplished. This song is the first of many new exciting adventures. Climb aboard and strap yourself in. We are about to blast off!”

With wide appeal in Comic Con culture, They Watch Us From The Moon not only perform epic sounds and live shows, they are busy with famed horror artist Rick Lara as the band’s art director and artist involved in rebooting the band’s comic book. “Return To Earth” delivers soaring instrumentation, ethereal lead vocals and a haunting choral backing. The soundscape is an expanse of powerful chord progressions, along with heavy grooves from the guitars and bass that bring a delicious sludge edge. All of the elements combine to produce a theatrical mood with added effects in the form of narrative clips.

They Watch Us From The Moon use their music to transport us to other worlds. Their cosmic sound is a fantastic combination of genre mixing and sheer creativity. Take a trip out into the galaxy and beyond safe in the knowledge that with They Watch Us From The Moon you’ll “Return To Earth”.

THEY WATCH US FROM THE MOON is:

• Luna Nemesis (lead vocals)
• The General Shane Thirteen (guitar & vocals)
• R. Benjamin Black (lead guitar & vocals)
• akkatron (bass)
• Adryon Alin (drums)
• Nova 1001001 (vocals)

Leave it to SPACELORD to one-up itself, single after single, as we inch closer to the release of the band’s as yet untitled full-length record. Recently, we played “Midnight Shadow” on The Doomed & Stoned Show, which I described as “swampy as hell, with some great up-tempo Delta blues style guitar playing.” That song was paired with a Hendrix cover and released just last month.

Now “the two-headed beast from Buffalo” gives us another foretaste of what’s in store come November, when all will be revealed. Thematically based upon the writings of Russian sibling authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (from which Tarkovsky derived inspiration for the science fiction classic Stalker), “Enemy Lines” fuses elements of backwoods folk with steamy blues, flirts with moments of dissonance and psychedelia, and presents earnest and convincing vocals from Ed Grabianowski (“dragonfire and thunderbolts”), who is joined on this recording by Richard Root (“robot monsters and lazer beams”).

There’s something rather ominous in sentiment about “Enemy Lines” all on its own, but the music video, directed by H. Pattison is wholly absorbing in its own right. While watching, I get a strong feeling that we’re getting a crystal ball’s view into the dystopian past of some alternate history or a glimpse into our own inevitable future. I’ll not spoil the experience for you, but suffice it to say, the visuals will leave you pondering.

I also reached out to Ed for comment, who revealed: “When I wrote the vocal parts for ‘Enemy Lines,’ it just flowed out of me. I did a scratch track that was just wordless singing and moaning, and the melodies emerged from that. Then I started writing lyrics and immediately fell into this character, isolated but tough as nails, somewhere else. I’m not even sure where that place is. Could be another planet. Could be a lot weirder than that. 'So far away from home’.”

Rich chimes in, telling Doomed & Stoned: “The slide electric was a natural choice if it were even a choice at all. By that I mean I didn’t consider approaching an additional instrument part for this song any other way - it was like creating a painting of a tree with the expectation that I would put leaves on it.”

Keep your eyes peeled for pre-orders of the new 7" single, which will be paired on with a cover of the lesser known but no less classic Led Zeppelin III song, “Out on the Tiles.” Spacelord’s rendition sports a robust zest that is arguably missing from the original, not to mention all that badass low-end (edging them deeper and deeper into my Top 25 list of must-see live acts following pandemic). But you’ll have to wait on that reveal later. First things first, Doomers & Stoners! Join me as together we cross “Enemy Lines.”

Give ear…

Some Buzz

Inspired by Russian science-fiction novel 'Roadside Picnic’ (1972), Spacelord’s latest single “Enemy Lines” space-cowboys up with soaring verses and an anthemic chorus. Paired with a B-side cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Out on the Tiles,” “Enemy Lines” presages the band’s third album, scheduled for an early November release. Video artist H. Pattison is back in the saddle, directing a creepy memetic collage of terrifying otherworldly intrusions to accompany the song.

“We’re both insanely proud of this song,” said singer Ed Grabianowski. “We hope our friends in the stoner, doom, and heavy psyche communities love it as much as we do. And we really hope this can reach a wider audience too. There are so many different elements coming together for this song, and for the full album, that I can’t even tell you what genre it is. There’s stuff here I think prog fans will like, stuff I think roots rock fans will like, classic rock fans, blues fans, even metal fans.”

Spacelord made the Doom Charts with their first two albums, and played both the Descendants of Crom Festival and the Music is Art Festival in 2019. The core songwriting team of Root/Grabianowski embarked on a pandemic-induced remote recording project that evolved into what will be their third full-length album. “Enemy Lines is one of those tunes that forces itself into existence,” said guitarist Richard Root. “It started as a simple acoustic track, but it was apparent to us right away that this song was begging to sprout much larger wings.”

“A few years ago we played a Halloween show where we dressed up as Led Zeppelin and did a set of covers,” said Grabianowski. “Even Stairway. But I was more intimidated by trying to do Bonham’s drums for this Zeppelin cover than I was trying to do Plant’s vocals. This song is so fun to play though. It’s ridiculously happy.”

Spacelord’s third full-length album will be released in early November 2021.

The album Outerworld was recorded by SUN OF GREY between the Fall of 2019 and the Spring of 2020. The initial groundwork was laid down in Denver, Colorado. over two days at Module Overload Studio. From there, Ian began to mix the tracks down and redo his rhythm guitars with their new pedal sponsorship from Fowl Sounds. When it came time to do vocals, Freddy quickly realized his voice wasn’t giving him what he needed so he worked with a vocal coach for six months to get the performance he was looking for.

Finally, things were handed over to Matt Qualls (The Heavy Eyes) at Young Avenue Sound in Memphis, Tennessee for the mixing and mastering phase of the project which really made this album shine. Outerworld is 44 minutes in length and features six songs in total, for a doom-ridden trek into oblivion.

Outerworld was well received when it was released on October 30, 2020 and made number #9 on the Doom Charts. Their first run of vinyl sold out very quickly and the band recently signed with Kozmik Artifactz to put out a 2nd run of colored/splattered vinyl for their fans. Please sit back and enjoy the Listener’s Guide to Outerworld from Sun of Grey.

Dark Souls

I can take all your pain away, your suffering inside.
All that you are I see, stare deep in the fire.

While Freddy was working as an editor in Hollywood, California a new project came in that left a lasting impression. He had always been a big fan of Dungeons & Dragons and the like, so when he was first introduced to Demon’s Souls, a new action role-playing game developed by FromSoftware, he was forever hooked. Working on this project and making the Visceral Action Trailer for the game was one of his happiest moments while working as an editor. Dark Souls was one of the very first songs developed together as a band from Sun of Grey and is written from the Fire Keepers point of view. A non playable character that grants upgrades and provides some guidance along the way. The game is very dark and foreboding and that’s exactly the way the band wanted the track to sound for this journey into the unknown.

Jar of Leeches

I’ve got this feeling inside, of something dark arising.
It comes as no surprise that, we’ve seen the angels falling.

Growing up in a small Pennsylvania town with only one street light, religion played a big part in the community. But as Freddy grew up surrounded by the spoken word and friends and family blindly following their faith and never questioning, he never quite felt right deep down inside. He felt that behind all the smiley glad hands there was a dark side to it all using scripture as a ruse for those in power. But to question any of this meant going against everything he was taught to believe and would make him an outcast to those he loved so. Many years later we would all see men and women of great power fall victim to their own devices of treachery and deceitfulness all while using religion as a shield. This leaves us all frustrated and greatly saddened with the overbearing question: “Who can we trust to lead us to salvation?”

Lucifer Smiled

“Time and time and time again, falling further from grace.
For all the love that you had, spared the human race.”

What if everything you were told about the Devil was a lie? Have you ever questioned the source? Freddy decided to take a look at things from the other side and ask those questions that most people would rather avoid all together. Within the lyrics we share Lucifer’s thoughts as he tries to come to terms with being cast from heaven while God spared the humans made in HIS image. Finally, Lucifer has had enough and wages war upon Heaven and Earth bringing with him one-third of the angels that were cast out initiating Armageddon. In the end, Lucifer takes back his throne and sits smiling while we all wait to see what comes next. This song has definitely become a favorite for fans and the band alike.

Outerworld

“Mortal thoughts awaken me, in your consciousness I feed.
Through darkness I ascend, bring your world to the end.”

There is a dark force in the galaxy that we have yet to witness but it is very aware of our existence and silently awaits for its moment to strike us down for our glorious golden ball of fire in the sky. The scavengers’ planet is dying. Their sun is slowly burning out becoming just a grey piece of charcoal in the darkened sky. Just like others before them, the scavengers are tasked with exploring new worlds and capturing their heat source, their light source, their sun. For in doing so, the newfound world, your world, will freeze off and die in the process of allowing the scavenger’s world to survive a little while longer. It has always been this way and will always be, per the Scavenger’s Creed.

Silent Screams

“I can feel them, come what may.
They keep calling, calling my name!“

Freddy grew up a fan of The Twilight Zone, Tales from the Darkside and of course, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One episode in particular still haunts him to this day where the protagonist ends up being buried alive. We see the camera pull back from the dirt mound on the grave while hearing the terrifying screams of the unforgiven below. Freddy decided to use this fear in a song where the victim finds themselves buried alive in a coffin where they can still hear screams coming from the ground above them. Desperately trying to bust out of the small confines of the coffin while constantly hearing the tormented screams from unknown spectators above. Running out of air, panic sets in, and then the doors are finally torn open only to reveal the person’s worst fears as they quickly realize that the screams they heard were coming from the dead. Which they have now forever joined in their cold and decayed, embracing arms.

Disease

“Broken promises, distorted lies.
The others tried to warn me, about your devil inside.”

Betrayal is a very hard thing to deal with. But when it comes from a friend or family member, it just goes to another level and feels more personal. This was the hardest song Freddy has ever written and is a private story from another time in his life. It was definitely a form of therapy to be able to put this down on paper and share it with others, He explains. The split guitar solo in the song exemplifies the battle between good and evil. The first solo (Ian) has an Egyptian feel as the snake enters the young man’s life and tries to ruin him. Making him question everything causing rifts with family and friends. Just as the second solo (Freddy) comes in, the young man fights for his life in a deadly battle until finally defeating the vile fork-tongued serpent, growing stronger and wiser from the confrontation.

Every other day there’s a story that calls our eyes heavenward to wonder about new planets discovered in nearby solar systems, terraforming Mars, or exploring the smallest elements in the universe. Anywhere has to be better than here, any time better than here right now. At least that’s what a lot of people are feeling. How about the power of music to elevate us into vast dimensions of the imagination. One band out of New Zealand is interested in finding out what limits one can breach when the driving power of doom rock is hotwired with adventurous sci-fi/fantasy storytelling.

I speak, of course, of Wellington quartet PLANET OF THE DEAD Last year, Mark Mundell (vox), Malcolm McKenzie (guitar), Kees Hengst (bass), and Josh Hussey (drums) brought us the impressive first introduction to their soundscape and narrative concept, which elicited no small amount of praise for ‘Fear of a Dead Planet’ (2020), including the enthusiastic Bandcamper who gushed, “Some of the best jams I’ve heard in this universe!” Listen to fan favorites “The Eternal Void” or “Mind Killer” and you’ll discover why there’s excitement around this band’s future.

But Planet of the Dead wasn’t done yet. As many of us have already experienced, unexpected and elongated times of forced aloneness do crazy things to the creative mind. For one, it frustrates, as you cannot express the present songs you feel so strongly about to live crowds filled with spontaneous drifters. The moods usually shift out of sheer exasperated boredom, leading to the insatiable urge to begin tinkering again. 'Pilgrim’ (2021) comes at us like an explosion with stories to tell and songs to wail. It’s purpose-driven interdimensional doom we’re talking about here. This may have been the impetus behind the second album’s creation, so closely after the birth of their first (incidentally, both records feature exactly eight songs a piece).

“Gom Jabbar” is the first creature we chance upon in this otherworldly dimension. He speaks with synth-enhanced vocals (ever so slightly) that’s practically like an alien encounter if you listen to it high (gosh, sorry. I’ve gotta stop leaking album reviewer secrets like that). A defiant second voice joins the dialogue, sounding for all the world like Goliath, Hercules, or Hulkian figure.

“Pilgrim” stirs up grey and purple auras as this groovy sandcrawler glides across dunes and high above deserts, searching for the most fitting place to (re)build the world they once knew, perhaps even dare to dream beyond it. I’m assuming they’re a scientific voyage on the run from a restrictive government in a week’s long mini series I should have pitched to NBC 20 years ago for big bucks. The song allows your imagination drift on its own recognisance, before the closing words call us back to the shadows.

A dire feeling blankets the air throughout “Nostromo,” a stomping little number that’s straight-up doom rock, with a cool streetwalking kind of stride. It’s impossible to not to think of previous adventures aboard vessels christened Nostromo, but each are mysterious encounters with the unknown, some of which yield new insights into our humanity by taking us back through some strange luck of heavy metal time travel to experience pivotal moments in astral history.

“The Sprawl” may be one of the most dismal legs of this journey, but in an exotic acid-soaked kind of way that makes you question your reality (and your own sanity) before the trip is done. The song is good about building various layers of joy and tension, then meshing them together for some distorted, fuzzy, electric, sparkin’ Frankensteinian experience. Where will the spiral take us next? Confident lead gets a riff-enhanced jolt, staging march-like-groove that eventually turns meditative, psychedelic, and ethereal. And that’s just the first side of the record! Go ahead, flip it over. You can’t stop this far-invested in the trip. Shhh. Listen. Grungy, rumbling energy, extraterrestrial harmonics, and gnarly acid-touched solos are just ahead.

“Escape from Smith’s Grove” jars the senses with the unexpected tonal shift from clarinets into a seismic pattern of eruptions that match our stomping feet. This is, after all, a jailbreak of sorts.

“Directive IV” takes the perspective of an enforcement officer who is just doing his job. Mark Mundell’s vocal stylings are on-point. For me they compare to the pipes of the late-great Wayne Static, the spastic, growling frontman of Static X. Others may see more similarity with the “common man” grit of Scott Angelacos from Hollow Leg and Junior Bruce. Or even Kirk Windstein’s apocalyptic spitfire with Crowbar.

The song appears to be a struggle of conscience between compassion and machine-like order, a tug-of-war that after several epic call and response segments in which our protagonist is put on trial by his peers. The tight grip of fascistic space goons gradually loosens their grip in the song’s final minutes, as a street-worn riff storm carries our rebels far away from the grasp of whatever the fucks. That means our (now treasonous) soldier has a second chance at life in the (are you ready for this?) the unknown wilds of…

…“The Cursed Earth.” This is a perfect song for that moment in a show when the alcohol or “legal tobacco” has sufficiently unlocked your third eye with stellar riffs and choruses (this song has several “ah-ha” moments). The vocals are obscured here and are sometimes backed up by other singers to emphasize a specific point in the lyrical narrative. The final moments again are slowed down with impactful tonal moments that make you think you’re on the edge spying some strange meeting of warrior souls.

Things are not what they seem
They never are

“The Great Wave” pulls you right into its hypnotic sway, interjected with extraterrestrial strains of thought communicated as if by a very blasted HAL 9000, our onboard computer. It’s downright creepy when it hits you. Then again, maybe that’s what we want from an intrepid album such as Pilgrim, to rope us into a fascinating narrative and invite us to return to sort out the details, several spins down the road. Now that I think of it, maybe these songs are all references pinned to great Alien, Robocop, and Judge Dredd moments? Listen closely to “Nostromo” and “Directive IV” and wonder. A good album should do that to a person, draw you into its storytelling and musical colour. It has me listening to it immediately from beginning to end, then end to beginning. If you wanna give it a shot, Planet of the Dead’s monsterpiece will definitely reward your back-to-back listens.

Look for Pilgrims to come to life on July 23rd, with a fantastic spread of options on vinyl and CD (pre-order here). In the meanwhile, Planet of the Dead are letting us join the party leading up to the big drop right here at Doomed & Stoned HQ, where you can hear each track in full. Don’t miss crucial insight from the band itself in 'Some Buzz’ to follow. Then join in sharing your thoughts and theories (stoned or otherwise) on this transcendental New Zealand metal album in the comments below!

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

Just little over a year following the release of their auspicious debut album, 'Fear of a Dead Planet’ (2020), which attained more than 35,000 views on YouTube, New Zealand cosmic stoner and doom four-piece band Planet of the Dead are back with a new full-length album titled 'Pilgrims’ (2021).

Hurtling towards the forever yawning void within their busted-up space freighter, they draw inspiration from classic science fiction and horror, and push supermassive and megalithic riffs to the outer limits.

“Our second album came together around the titular track 'Pilgrim’, which is based on the book 'Slaughterhouse 5’ by Kurt Vonnegut. Musically, it plays upon the themes of moments trapped in the amber.” So says the band about this new album.

“Our basic concept is heavy music played heavy, and we try to keep it simple. There are recurrent themes in our riffs which gives the album a sense of coherence, but we’ve experimented with some new sounds in the latest album which we feel results in a greater sense of dynamism.

"Lyrically, we dug deeper into our obsessions with classic sci-fi and horror. There is a distinctive and undeniable fan-fiction element to our work. We actively seek out cultural references, and weave them into our tapestries. Ultimately, we do everything we do for the great god Dyzan, for his greater glory…and for our mutual pleasure.”

Set for release on July 23rd, 'Pilgrims’ will surely cement Planet of the Dead’s reputation as serious riff merchants.

Leaving the world
For salvation yonder
Quest for eternity
To suns beyond

Gazing upon our past
Out into forever
To a future obscured
What glory awaits?

To begin another week of awesome original content at Doomed & Stoned, we’re getting you better acquainted with the Swedish juggernaut 10,000 YEARS.

Last summer, the band dropped their eponymous debut to welcome ears and in just a few short weeks 10,000 Years come roaring back with a follow-up. Y'all know I’m a sucker for a good concept album. The eight-track full-length record ‘II’ (2021) picks up the trail of the Albatross research vessel, which has been galavanting 'cross the nether reaches of the galaxy on a potent rocket fuel made of sludgy stoner rock and doom metal.

If that sounds epic, wait’ll you get a load of what’s next for our interstellar crew. It helps if you picture the following text as a Star Wars-style screen crawl, slowly working its way up the page against the backdrop of a starry night.

After narrowly escaping the confines of the strange planet and its surrounding dimension, the Albatross and its crew finally return home to Earth. The re-entry is rough and the ship crashlands in a forest. The earth that greets them is vastly different from the one that they left.

When the ship travelled back to earth through the wormhole, it created a rift in the space-time continuum which propelled them far into the future, as well as allowing the Green King and other ancient gods from the other dimension to cross over to our dimension. They have since taken control of not only the earth, but the entire solar system.

After various harrowing experiences and encounters, the truth finally dawns on the surviving members of the crew. They are indeed back on earth, but ten thousand years in the future from when they started their journey. And to make matters worse, they find evidence that the Green King has been known and worshipped by secret cults and societies on earth for millenia, since before humankind even existed.

The surviving members of the crew come to the conclusion that the only way to set things right again is to repair the Albatross and take it back through the rift again in order to close it.

Now that’s a saga I’m ready to get invested in. George Lucas, eat your heart out!

The record revs to a start with “Descent,” a track that can best be described as terrific panic. It had me thinking of KOOK’s “Escape Velocity” from their recent second album, though that’s an eight-and-a-half minute slow burn and this is a quick twenty-six second fall from the sky. I wish this little notion had a chance to develop into something longer, but regardless what a thrilling way to open an album!

With rapt attention, I’m waiting to hear what comes next. The ship seems to have crash landed deep inside a “Gargantuan Forest.” As an aside, it would be a blast to smoke a bowl o’ something (anything, really) with Erik Palm (guitar), Alex Risberg (bass, vox), and Espen Karlsen (drums) just to gab it up a bit about sci-fi lit and horror flicks. I mean, check out the trove of B-movie greats referenced in their preface to the new single (which Doomed & Stoned is debuting today):

In this ABSURD (1981) video, 10,000 Years enter a FOREST OF FEAR (1980) as they access THE BEYOND (1981) and enter a BLOODBATH (1971) with THE BOOGEY MAN (1980), otherwise known as the Espbeast. The Espbeast stalks and haunts the bodies and minds of the characters in this C-grade homage to the horror movies of yesteryear.

The characters FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE (1976) through insane NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN (1981). If they survive the AXE (1974) they may still end up in an INFERNO (1980) and risk being EATEN ALIVE (1976). All the same risks face the viewer, so don’t watch with the lights out, don’t watch by yourself and DON’T GO IN THE WOODS ALONE (1981). Because after all, isn’t there an Espbeast in all of us?

10,000 Years have picked the ideal setting for the music video. The forests of Sweden stand tall and dark, the ground packed with snow. Screw you, Blair Witch Project – this is where I want the next found footage flick filmed!

The song opens with a mysterious theme on solitary electric strings, surrounded by hazy reverberation. Drums and bass accent the motif as it’s repeated several times over. Dazed by their graceless fall to earth, the crew wander about, checking one another for injuries, seeing if the faithful Albatross has even hope of another journey. As the shock begins to wear off, their hopeless plight reveals itself.

Screaming from the sky
Blasting through the atmosphere

Come to rest
On the forest floor
Still alive
What fresh new hell is this?

Surrounded by swamps
A strange bleeding from the earth

Giant trees
A dense horror taking root
Same old sun
Unfamiliar rays shine down

Is there something lurking about in the Gargantuan Forest? I’m sure no one wants to wait until nightfall to find out! The so-called “Espbeast” (which the band may actually have been first to name) is more than likely some strange amalgamation of guitar and creature, ripping through foes like a berserker of sound with scraps of High on Fire’s “10,000 Years” echoing perversely through the treetops as it stalks and ultimately slays you. Nobody wants to be around when the Espbeast is on the prowl.

Now see, I’m letting my imagination get carried away! Then again, maybe that’s what the band had planned all along – for listeners to join in the fantastic adventures of these cosmonauts, to see through their eyes and feel through their body as they touch foot to strange soil. What will our adventurers find next?

The answer comes all too soon: “Spinosaurus!” This gruff beast charges angrily through the woods knocking things about, displacing rocks, snapping branches, royally pissed and ready to make somebody pay for the noise that snatched him away from a damned good nap. The repeated note riff, with its odd strumming pattern, does a nifty job of representing the crude movements of the Spinosaurus as it lumbers about the forest. Eric is a virtuosic mess of frantic tremeloes and wiry noodling against Espen’s stampeding drums, as Alex narrates the scene with a terrifying shout:

Is this our earth?
No time to dwell
Dorsal sail cutting air
Cretaceous ghost made flesh

Staring into
Dead end eyes
No place to hide
Theropodic annihilation

Teeth into flesh!

What the crew is experiencing on their homeworld thus far seems foreign, almost ancient. Through some curse of Einstenian logic have we zipped through a wormhole only to return to the distant past? “The Mooseriders” are about to challenge our assumptions about what’s possible on this Rock.

Thundering hooves crack the sky
Dark robed wizards appear in the light
Travellers in ether descending
Protectors of the realm

These are the oath-bound eternals – interdimensional templars, if you will – who have arrived at this precise moment in time to take on the Green King. Complex rhythmic drumming with precisely stricken odd beats, is accompanied by a hyperactive bass and progressive metal riffmaking. Together, the band conjures the trot and hustle of the approaching entourage. A wilding guitar heralds a message from the great protectors:

The hour draws near
The endgame is nigh
Divine prophecy
Even death may die

The mood now turns stately. A brave theme is introduced and developed with dashing prowess. This track would fit perfectly into a playlist with Mastodon, Ape Cave, and Zirakzigil. I found Alex’s vocal approach especially appropriate for the frantic depiction of “antlers clashing with steel” in this battle to the finish. “Even death…may…DIE!”

“Angel Eyes” greet us on the B-side, and it’s not a cover of the Jerry Cantrell song (though that would have been unexpectedly awesome). No, the hard-charging mood and raspy vocals are pointing to something far more apocalyptic.

Hooves of burning coal
Let loose upon the world

Return of the warlord
Eternal fire scorches the earth

Heavenly gaze
Order through chaos

At times Alex seems exasperated, practically out of breath, as he gives these dire words his all. It’s a style the 10,000 Years frontman owns as well as his counterpart, Simon Ohlsson of Vokonis, who has a comparable vocal attack. A bass-fortified guitar establishes a second theme that adds a Wagnarian touch of high drama, and this ushers in the song’s curtain fall.

If 10,000 Years is to be compared with High On Fire at all, the rumbling riffstorm “March Of The Ancient Queen” surely merits it (to say nothing of their mutual love of alternative histories).

Her royal blood
Once ruled these lands
Generations
Buried by time
Dynasty of dust
Rise from the sands
Rise from the dead
The Green King’s servant

March!

That last lyric is uttered with the most blood-curdling all-caps conviction that I was immediately drawn into its sentiment, miming “Maaaaarrrrrch!” with my ugliest war face on every time it came up in the song. The NWOBHM-style finish is so deftly executed that it comes across as orchestral. 10,000 Years paint with big, bold strokes here.

“Prehuman Walls” is a welcome shift down, with its chugging “Bury Me In Smoke” tempo. You sludge fiends will find moments of Zen here, with riffs that bend and twist and saw 'neath the summer sun. The crew have chanced upon a temple of sorts, though not one made with human hands. Nothing seems to make sense here at all. It’s like Area X from the film Annihilation (2017), where everything is a contortion of reality. Then the “truth settles in.” This alien monstrosity, we find, bears the mark of the sinister Green King. We thought we’d escaped him, only to find that he both followed us and was here millenia before.

Unholy worship
Feed the Green King
Eyes pried open
Sanity stripped away

At last, we reach the final track in our journey: “Dark Side Of The Earth”. So many revelations have been made in this second chapter, so many loose ends that need to be tied off. Naturally, a third chapter must be written. “We must go back, set it right,” deliberates an exasperated Albatross crew. “We must go back, whence we came.”

Dimension walls broken down
The fabric ripped and torn apart
Thread the needle once again
A journey of ten thousand years

We must go back, set it right
We must go back, through the tears

Insanity the only way
The dark side of the earth

Following these words, the song develops instrumentally and the mood gets quite emotional. I found myself drawing parallels between this “bastard version of earth” and our own, wondering if we ever can go back and make it right. For us, perhaps it should be about moving forward, for there is no golden age or better time to which we can return. We make this world a heaven or hell tomorrow by the choices made today.

The album was recorded by Tomas Skogsberg at Studio Sunlight. Totally diggin the awesomely swamp landscape that Francesco Bauso of Negative Crypt Artwork created. It reminds the five-year old me of Luke’s sopping wet landing on Dagobah, though guitarist Alex Risberg says the band’s more inspired by Planet of the Apes than by Star Wars.

The album will be released on June 25th as a special vinyl “Green King Edition” by Interstellar Smoke Records pre-order here), a cassette tape “Forest Edition” from Ogo Rekords (pre-order here) and “Swamp Edition” from Olde Magick Records pre-order here), with the digital and compact disc formats handled by Death Valley Records (pre-order here).

10,0000 Years have in II their most accomplished album to date, with powerful moments that will stay with you long after the record’s stopped spinning. Fans of High On Fire, Black Tusk, and The Sword listen up! You might just discover your next favorite band.

Give ear…

Some Buzz

Having previously played together in the original lineup of Swedish underground heavyweights Pike, Erik Palm (Guitars) and Alex Risberg (Bass/vocals) found their way back to each other, musically, in early 2020. The creative fire reignited and stoked to a burning inferno and through a mutual love of heavy riffs and thundering stoner rock, doom, and sludge metal, 10,000 Years was born. Finding a drummer would prove to be an easy task and with Espen Karlsen the final piece lay firmly in place. The groove they fell into during the first rehearsal hasn’t stopped rumbling since.

After spending the first-half of 2020 writing and rehearsing, 10,000 Years recorded their self-titled debut EP during one weekend in June in the legendary Studio Sunlight with equally legendary producer Tomas Skogsberg. The self-titled EP was released on July 10th and immediately struck a chord with the heavy underground worldwide, and 10,000 Years garnered rave reviews and accolades.

10,000 Years’ musical and lyrical world revolves around the tale of the terran class III exploration vessel Albatross and its mission to explore the Milky Way and nearby galaxies in search for a possible new home for humanity. The EP tells the tale of its first foray into space and what happens when the crew accidentally travel through a wormhole and end up in an adjacent dimension populated by ancient gods and giant beings, ruled by the Green King. The EP ends with “From Suns Beyond,” where the crew make it off from the strange planet, back out into space in search of a way back home. The new album picks up the story as the Albatross blasts through the atmosphere of a seemingly unknown planet and crashlands headfirst into strange new adventures.

Now, less than a year after their first release, 10,000 Years are back with their first full-length effort, aptly titled 'II’ (2021). Picking up right where the EP left off, II continues the story of the ill-fated Albatross mission and its exploration of time and space through a skull-crushing mixture of stoner rock, doom, and sludge metal. The album will no doubt continue to build on 10,000 Years’ already golden reputation and prove to be an even bigger hit with the heavy masses.

Three years have passed since the release of Gravity Works and with it, Mexico’s VINNUM SABBATHI has had the opportunity to visit Europe for the first time. “Since then,” the band says, “we have released collaboration albums with Owain and Cegvera (with a massive earthquake in between). We’ve been on the road playing some amazing shows and meeting friends that we now consider family. We have been through unique experiences and colossal changes during this time; not only as musicians but as human beings as well; this is our vision of those experiences.”

“Of Dimensions & Theories” stands on a thin line between sci-fi and an impending doomed reality.

This is the year 2061, humanity is ready to become a planetary force with a complete scientific and technological mastery boosted by the invaluable data transmitted from cosmonaut Fritz on her way into a black hole, but the final piece of the puzzle lies hidden in deep space.

Rushed by the constant threat of nuclear war and the imminent collapse of the environment initiated by the sixth glare, humans have set the ultimate expedition; four earthling cosmonauts prepare to be the first ones in deep space exploration. Their mission: to reach and explore the “point one” location to find the missing data necessary to avoid this crisis and finally leap into a planetary conquest.

The album is divided into two “Dimensions” and two “Theories” faithfully represented on the vinyl record configuration released by Stolen Body Records. The 12" holds the two sides of this story while the 7" introduces two points of view from the public about the current situation on the planet. First, an appraisal about the future of the species, as told by humans from different nationalities and on the other hand, a preacher questioning the efforts to leave the planet to look for salvation in space. There are four ways to listen to this album, up to you to find your favorite sequence.

“Of Dimensions & Theories” was recorded, mixed and mastered by KB in Testa Studio in Leon, Mexico on January 3rd-5th, 2020. The artwork comes from the talented Asep Yasin Abdulah.

Give ear…

H.P. Lovecraft has done more to ignite the imaginations of musicians, artists, writers, and filmmakers than possibly any other single writer of the past 100 years. Before him, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne opened up the popular consciousness to the idea of visitors from other planets and worlds within worlds beneath our toes. Lovecraft, however, seemed more interested in exploring the darker recesses of our collective unconscious. It was something Carl Jung found embodied in our myths and legends.

For Lovecraft, the primitive mind represented an entire universe of Jungian potential locked away to all but the mind’s eye. The truth, if we could ever know it, was revealed in hints and shadows, voices speaking in strange tongues, occult symbols etched in stone, and forbidden rituals so secret that they could scarcely be discovered by intent, only by accident. Thus, Lovecraft chiseled away at a rich mythology of his which, if fascinating or even familiar to us in some uncanny way, owes to our inborn fondness for stories that explain the strangeness about us.

Portland-based SPACE GOD RITUAL (who we’ve featured on The Doomed & Stoned Show and our Doomed & Stoned in Portland compilations) have long expressed their affection for the labyrinth of Lovecraft lore over the course of five albums, the latest of which represents one of their most uniquely conceived and cohesive efforts to date. ‘The Unknown Wants You Dead!’ (2019) strings together excerpts from some of Lovecraft’s most notable works like a dark musical, the band helpfully setting the stage for us:

From the street, one may hear the muffled chanting of our congregation from within the crumbling structure that is Olaff’s Antiquities. Many avoid our humble abode; those who enter of their own free will are often never the same again. Do you dare cross the threshold and suffer the tales we tell? Yes? Good! You will hear across eleven hymns, tragic yarns of science and magic, of hubris and horror, of man and monster! Along with this music of madness you may also come across our tome of terrors, a book brimming with hideous secrets and the most profane of incantations! Come inside, let us regale you!

It is this Olaff, presumably, who introduces these songs to us in the prologue, “Miskatonic 1927.”

Tales of the Eldritch you have heard
Journeys from the void and endless oceans you have traveled
The Tentagram you have waylaid
But to what end?
You think you have escaped
But your descent into madness has only just begun…

Each of the numbers that follow carry on in its own unique narrative style – some spoken, most sung. It’s tantamount to a multi-act operetta scored with the ominous sounds of doom, topped by synth-filled atmospherics, and searing, blues-touched solos that slay me every time. This is literary horror transformed by the magic of music into a powerful medium of expression that engages both mind and emotions. If you’re at all like me, you’ll be singing along with it in no time (the album’s namesake track is perniciously addictive).

As a matter of fact, I’d love to see this record turned into a cabaret performance. You know, one of those visual spectacles that encourages liberal participation from the audience. It’d be so much fun. In the meanwhile, the spirit of such a multifaceted performance is embodied well in the The Unknown Wants You Dead.. My favorite track? “The Mansion in the Mist.”

Give ear…

It’s Doomed & Stoned’s sixth anniversary! To celebrate, we’re partnering with bands to give away Bandcamp download codes all this week and through the weekend. If you’re one of the chosen few to successfully acquire one, beware: the latest offering from Space God Ritual has Cthulhu’s tentacles all over it. With that in mind, you can redeem your code right here.

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