The Number One album of 2015
Before we start the Countdown of 2019 we look back at those past 10 years of Stoner HiVe. Indeed, we celebrate 10 years. 10 years of heavy riffs, romps and stomps! 10 years of heavy magic! That all started back in 2009 when the blog started, just so we would have a vehicle to count down the best 20 albums of 2009. The edition of 2015 had 72 lists to tally, the first year that the amount of lists did not climb since that first edition back in 2009. But the list, deduced out of the lists sent in by 72 heavy music fiends, started with Witchskull – The Vast Electric Dark on Number 20. It featured Glowsun and their Beyond The Wall Of Time album on Number 3 and the amazing The Night Creeper album by Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats on Number 2. For the entire Top 20, visit the Countdown So Far post on Stoner HiVe… But what album ended up on the Number One position back in 2015... Well, that’s when we wrote:
“The jump from Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats as runner-up in the Stoner HiVe top 20 countdown of 2015 is no less that thirty-seven points. The absolute Gold medal this year goes to a trio that was already predicted to steal the prize back in February. And who already took first place back in 2011 with their Dead Roots Stirring album. They managed to turn the musical year upside down and uprooting the expected slow start of the year. They ran away with the Doom Charts those first months and came in second place in the overall Doom Charts. Where yours truly wrote: “Stupefying all of us. Or at least most of us. They came out swinging with an album at the very beginning of this year that perhaps even bested that awe-inspiring performance on Roadburn 2013. The Boston trio released their album unto the world in February and all of us kept spinning that record until the needle ran through the groove. Their mixture of psychedelic rock, heavy stoner and epic metal will have you climbing to incredible heights in the dreams they evoke. There is no escaping and once you’re in, there is really no way out until those final mythical fading moments... For the album is one gigantic tension arc. It will make you forget all about time and place and experience something that only the true wise men know. It won’t teach, but simply show…” The stuff of legends, a contribution that will live on forever in the pantheon of rock. A perfect record, a pure ballistically delivered album, a blow against the empire, a rigging singular beautiful strike, a hammer of the gods that will sound on for eternity…”
And is Lore still that good? Still as amazing as Dead Roots Stirring? Yes it is! Where Dead Roots Stirring stated to the world that Elder was here for good, it was Lore that conquered everyone’s heart. It’s powerful, bold and yet delicate as well. It’s orgastic and takes their heavy psych into an even more progressive future. Some of those circular riffs, rhythms and romps feel even more like sacred and slippery mercury as time progresses. Four years have passed since Lore and there aren’t that many albums that can truly touch the level of craftmanship this one possesses. Are there?
Elder – Lore
(For the rest of the Top 20 of 2015, visit the Countdown So Far post on the blog...)