Stevie Reek - Personal Top 12 of 2024
Reek of STOOM aka Stevie Reek's Personal Top 20 is here for you the peruse! It's a Dirty Dozen though and it's filled with albums all in tuned to his impeccable taste. It’s the best of the very best and the dirtiest of the dirties and contains everything one might hear on his very own Howls From The Hollow. Tune in and hear all that howling... Below his list you can see what reviews he wrote for the HiVe this year...
The Greatest Resurrection of All-Time! Nils Frykdahl and his Experimental troupe roll back the years and deliver something truly special! A dazzling, extraordinary melee of Invention which runs the gamut of genres through Avantgarde, RIO and beyond, with something new to focus on with every listen. Impeccable musicianship and cohesion throughout!
This is unquestionably deserving of a place! LOWEN's sound is unlike anything I've ever heard before. Nina and Shem have created an album that will resonate through Time, Culture and Metal Music - A powerful and apropos narration of Persian Folklore that fans of Doom, Stoner and World Music alike should embrace! Nina is in the form of her life here: The Metal equivalent of Ofra Haza!
A French Heavy Assault team wielding a sonic attack that would cripple a galaxy. "ILION" is the sound of a band who take the best of Space Rock and marry it with some of the hardest Sludge Metal and in doing so, create something special and unique!
A very creative French band fronted by an extraordinary vocalist! Impeccable Progressive Rock with hints of Post-Metal and a penchant for stunning virtuosity that your ears will thank me for!
Réunion is a small island in the Indian Ocean which is a territory of France and the French influence on this work is profound! Stunning Zeuhl in the vein of MAGMA, ESKATON & UNIVERS Zero with a nod to KING CRIMSON and Canterbury....Immaculate Musicianship and Vision!
Nicholas Turner, the twisted genius behind NIR returns with yet another magnificent display of dizzying, genre-morphing metal: "Acts Of Despair And Faith" highlights his signature guitar wizardry and ability to juxtapose elements of Raw Black Metal, Doom and Avantgarde compositions that simultaneously suck the listener into the void whilst propelling them into the star-filled Heavens! A triumph!
There is a Timeless Magick about this - an album that would sit well with ANY Krautrock of 1970: Ash Ra Tempel, Brainticket, Popol Vuh, Cosmic Jokers etc. The ebb and flow of the music, the subtle interplay between the Musicians, The Notes and the Concept is a delight to hear! "The Golden Key..." establishes WHITE CANYON & THE 5TH DIMENSION as a Modern beacon for the genre!
Nick DeSalvo goes AWOL from ELDER and forges a delightful and singular slice of Prog/Krautrock that showcases his melodic mastery and incredible ability!
Australian Psychedelic leviathans THE SINSEMILLIAN return with "The Collective Consciousness": A sprawling, snarling lumber through six gargantuan slabs of grimace that run the gamut between Doom, Stoner, Sludge and Lysergic abandon. A crushing and magma-paced slither!
Dutch Guitar Wizard Tjeerd de Jong teams up with Cosmic Wordsmith Shane Beck to produce a shimmering, multi-layered slice of Heavy Psych. 8 stunning and vastly different compositions melding Heavy Psych, Poetry and Ambience to perfect effect!
Oranssi Pazuzu's sound is akin to a dark-tentacled Kraken ascending from the depths of the Mariana Trench to ensnare and terrify the unsuspecting voyager. As with all OP releases, they deftly defy convention and constantly reinvent themselves and "Muuntautuja" is no exception: Huge swathes of fearsome riffs with an Industrial edge which unfurl, capture and squeeze the essence from your soul. Magnificent!
This band makes me want to relocate to Belgium! Everything this weird incarnation produces is simply bizarre, uncompromising and utterly Brilliant!
And check out the one review he wrote last year here: