The Doom Charts Peroration - April 2026

 

The Doom Charts Peroration 

April 2026

 

“Take me down to the Festival City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
(Take me home) oh, won’t you, please, take me home?
Take me down to the Doom Charts City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
(Take me home) oh, won’t you, please, take me home?”

~ misheard… Guns ‘n Roses

With festival season upon us once again, the time has come to witness so many of the bands we love come alive on stage! Of course, throughout the year there are concerts, shows in crowded bars, smoky backrooms, dubious drinking holes and dilapidated buildings. But festivals possess a magic all their own, especially the ones that stretch across two or three unforgettable days. For a brief moment, you wander through a better version of the world… A place where strangers smile at one another, where people dance without hesitation, and where freedom seems to hum in the air itself. Music becomes the common language, the heartbeat behind every shared moment and every surge of all that wonderful energy. Next up for me personally, Sonic Whip Festival. Today actually. Where will you go to chase that feeling, to stand before your favorite bands and lose yourself in the sound? Below, are 25 favorite bands chosen by our contributors, the ones they hope to experience live themselves… So, tap into the energy, and feel it for yourself…

 

The other monthly Doom Charts post went live last Friday! Peroration time! And this time around, no less than 7 of those blurbs were written by one of the crazies that occasionally writes for the HiVe... So, go read up on: Truckfighters, Stump Grinder, Purple Skies, Lungburner, Gnod, Black Lung and Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell... Although some of those were already posted on the HiVe as well! Either way, there are 25 albums to check out! If you haven't already... 

 

The following are words of adoration from Doom Charts Contributors, devotions to albums they could not stop spinning. Each month, our writers gather to celebrate the finest in doom, sludge, metal, stoner, progressive, psychedelic, and other heavy realms. Their selections are woven into the Doom Charts, published on the first Friday of every month. But some affections run too deep for the regular edition. Some albums fall just outside the chart, or inspire so many write-ups, and only one was chosen. Here, those excesses of love remain… Unfiltered, unbound, and still echoing… A few last words which hopefully will inspire you to listen to those albums…

  The Doom Charts Peroration - April 2026

The Doom Charts For April 2026

 

DOOM CHARTS

APRIL 2026

“Hello, Doom Charts, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again…”

~ probably misheard lyrics by Simon & Garfunkel

 

Wow, that felt like an extremely short month! And once again chockfull with amazing releases. So many, that the forty below only begin to scratch the surface of the Heavy Underground. No less than 211 albums received votes, but as always, only forty are published. And those forty and all those others you already discovered or will in the near future, are there to offer you some respite and relief in a world full of constant upheaval. Getting lost in these records might allow the listener to release pent-up, excessive emotions, leading to emotional, spiritual, or intellectual relief and a balanced state. Perhaps the entire world should start listening? 

Indeed, what a month once again! Look at all the heavy splendor! And from the bands that made it I voted for: A Very Old Ghost Behind The Farm, Birds of Vale, Ampacity, Beneath The Skin, Tusoc, Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovell, Black Weedow, Myar, Gurthworm, Elefus, American Sharks, Cesar Sun, White Tundra, Phantom Logic, Angine De Poitrine,  Bismut, Glowsun, Spirit Adrift, Purple Skies, Abrams, Bronco Forte, Occult Hand Order and Corrossion of Conformity... 

But as always... I could have voted for all who made the list! Gonna be starting the rundown soon with Number 40. The very cool Objective Counsciousness by Deathbird Earth... 

 

Already featured on Stoner HiVe:  

Album Premiere - Beneath The Skin - Beneath The Skin

 FULL ALBUM PREMIERE - White Tundra - Stories From The Dark

White Tundra – Stories From The Dark

Abrams – Loon

Bismut – Matsutake 

 

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and reviewers from the heavy underground around the globe.  Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic, progressive and heavy rock albums.  The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart below.  This is a one-stop shop for the best new albums in the world…

The Doom Charts for April 2026 

The Doom Charts Peroration - March 2026

 

The Doom Charts Peroration 

March 2026

 

“Through the worst we prevail
So the Doom Charts will be heard…”

~ probably misheard Hatebreed lyrics

 

Good people listen to good music and good albums deserve to be heard by one and all. Hence, we have this Peroration Post, to give just a little bit more attention to albums our Contributors love so dearly. And when albums made the regular post, but two, three or four more Contributors wrote about that album, it must be something special. Right? But all 32 albums listed below have something special, you can bet your ass on that! So, we implore you once again, to check them out… All of them! And spread the word! Cause good music needs to be heard… 

The other monthly Doom Charts post is here! Peroration time! And this time around, once again, no less than 11 of those blurbs were written by one of the crazies that occasionally writes for the HiVe... So, go read up on: Wielded Steel, Starf**K Electric Company, Spider Goat Canyon, Kaleidobolt, Gong, Goatsmoker, Fangus, Desert Colossus, The Crooked Skulls, Corrosion of Conformity and Bad Mothers Union... And of course, all the others! Or scroll down, and find posts about many of those albums already published on the HiVe... Well now, no rest of the wicked! Take your pick and listen hard! 

The following are love letters from Doom Charts Contributors, devotions to albums they could not stop spinning. Each month, our writers gather to celebrate the finest in doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic, and other heavy realms. Their selections are woven into the Doom Charts, published on the first Friday of every month. But some affections run too deep for the regular edition. Some albums fall just outside the chart, or inspire so many write-ups, and only one was chosen. Here, those excesses of love remain… Unfiltered, unbound, and still echoing… A few last words which hopefully will inspire you to listen to those albums…

 The Doom Charts Peroration - March 2026

The Doom Charts For March 2026

 

DOOM CHARTS

MARCH 2026

 

“And then one day you find
The Doom Charts have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun…”

~ misheard Pink Floyd lyrics…

The Doom Charts is made up of a passionate collection of underground journalists, bloggers, podcasters and other devoted heavy music fiends! This ever-evolving cabal shifts and transforms from month to month and at the bottom of each edition, you can see exactly who cast their votes that month. For of course, life has a way of interrupting even the most dedicated listening rituals. As the voting deadline creeps closer, we often find ourselves wondering where the time has gone. Though the date is never a mystery, it still manages to catch us off guard every single month. Is time moving faster than it used to? Or are there simply more incredible bands releasing outstanding albums at an unstoppable pace? Deep down, we all know the answer. Below, you’ll find the top forty albums, selected from a staggering pool of 197 releases that received votes. Each one is exceptional… Each one deserving of your time and attention. Now let’s hope the month will last a bit longer this time…

Ready for another wild ride through the Heavy Underground universe? And not just together with Kal-El's amazing Astral Voyager Vol.2... But with 39 other stunning Heavy Underground releases! 

 

Why yes! It's the March 2026 Doom Charts! 

 

Forty damn fine albums, and of those that made the list I voted for:

Kal-El, Red Sun Atacama, Desert Collider, Desert Colossus, New Dawn Fades, Neurosis, Devil Electric, Yeast Machine, Cowboys & Aliens, BLACK LUNG, Gnarwhal, Misty Route, Fuzzing Nation, Mammon's Throne, Clouds Taste Satanic, Mister Earthbound, Radian, Astral Wizard - Band , The Crooked Skulls , Spider Goat Canyon and Corrosion Of Conformity...

But as usual, I could have voted for all of them and more! Starting the rundown with perhaps the weirdest entry? Sturgill Simpson's Johnny Blue Skies project together with The Dark Clouds called Mutiny After Midnight...

 

Already featured on Stoner HiVe: 

Spider Goat Canyon - Walking With Geordie

Red Sun Atacama – Summerchild

Desert Colossus – Apparatus

Yeast Machine – Bad Milk

Video and Single Premiere - Lord Of Confusion - Wander (Live)

 Cowboys & Aliens - Finis Temporum

Kal-El – Astral Voyager Vol.2

Prophets of Thwaites - Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat 

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and reviewers from the heavy underground around the globe.  Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and heavy rock albums.  The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart below.  This is a one-stop shop for the best new albums in the world…

  The Doom Charts for March 2026

The Doom Charts Peroration - February 2026

 

The Doom Charts Peroration 

February 2026

“Sitting on a corn flake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you’ve been a naughty Doom Charts
You let your face grow long
I am the…“
~ probably misheard lyrics The Beatles

Even though it’s not Easter yet… We are the Egg men! As some of you probably realized, we always use all the album covers for the monthly Peroration header art. Well… Below, we feature 25 amazing albums straight out of the heavy underground. All worth every minute of your time. On the header image though, only 24 are featured. What?! Well.. Find out what album is missing, and then send us an email or a PM on the Doom Charts Facebook page through with the solution. The first ten to send an email or message will get a bandcamp code for that album! Happy hunting and listening!

We're gonna try to mention the Peroration Post on Stoner HiVe on a monthly basis as well, for the Doom Charts deserve it. The Contributors deserve it. And most of all, the bands and their albums deserve it! And this time around, once again, no less than 11 of those blurbs were written by one of the crazies that occasionally writes for the HiVe... So, go read up on Rob Zombie, Riastrad, Oreyeon, Motorpsycho, Mientras Las Abejas Duermen, India Tigers In Texas, It It Anita, Earth Tongue, Druid Stone, Dirty Dwarfs and Black Toaster... And of course all those other ones! 

 

The following are professions of love and adoration by Doom Charts Contributors for albums they could not stop spinning. Each month, the Doom Charts critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and other sorts of heavy rock and metal albums. The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart which is published on the First Friday of the new month. However, sometimes a love is so great, but for whatever reason the album unfortunately did not make the published Doom Charts Edition or because there were so many contributors in love with that one album, that multiple blurbs were written, and only the one got published… Well, you can peruse that love here…

The Doom Charts Peroration - February 2026

The Doom Charts For February 2026

 

DOOM CHARTS

FEBRUARY 2026

“Traveler now reach the stream, the audial flight adapter
From the pain-sheath sound ascends – the Non-returner hears
Empathy release me – and the Doom Chart rise triumphant…”
~ probably misheard lyrics by Om

The shortest month usually feels the longest when you’re waiting for the frost to break under the sun’s warmth, but the Heavy Underground has a way of warming your bones. As we venture further into this desolate year, the sheer volume of music being poured into our ears remains staggering. This month our contributors listened to, agonized over and eventually submitted a total of 200 different albums. And that’s only the ones they mentioned in their quantitatively restricted submissions, they probably listened to hundreds of albums!

From the smoke-filled basements of stoner rock, to the open fields of ambient, to the echoing cathedral naves of post-rock and cavernous lairs of doom, the variety continues to prove that “heavy” is a wide spectrum, not a single point. There continues to be an astounding amount of debut records submitted — bands emerging from the ether with fully-formed identities and riffs that sound like they’ve been aging in oak barrels for decades. Well, some of them do have the distinct edge of raw spirit rotgut. Of course, we still have to navigate the foggy musical swamp we’re wading through. We aren’t interested in the perfect performance or immaculate production, let alone committee engineered pop hooks; we want grit! And the small mistakes, the driving  passion and the raw power that only comes from real people totally smashing on their real instruments.

So, here it is: the top of the Doom Charts February 2026. A one-stop shop for the best new heavy releases out there, at least the best we could find! Dig in, support the bands, and let the music do the talking and screaming.

~ Jukka ‘Shrike’ Kolehmainen (Psychotropic Caravan, Abhorrence, Shrike’s Playlists)

 

Nicely worded by Jukka and we still can't wrap our heads around the sheer amount of albums released on a daily basis. But luckily we have the Doom Charts and all those other blogs, zines and podcasts to shed a light on many of them. And it's great when it happens on a Friday... For... 

It's Bandcamp Friday and the First Friday of the new month... Perfect time to scour through the brand new Doom Charts edition!= Out now and featuring forty amazing albums for you to peruse!

And of those forty on the list I personally voted for:

BROND, India Tigers in Texas, Phantom Druid, Blunt Knife Castration, Riastrad, Loud, Purple Lung, Earth Tongue, Surf Through Death, Mount Palatine, Eleanore, Sons of Gulliver, Fátima, Mientras las abejas duermen, Stargo, L'IRA DEL BACCANO, Electric Hydra, Oath of Doom, OREYEON, BelzebonG, Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows and Weedpecker...

Gonna start listening to all forty in a row again... We started with BROND's Snooze! And made our way through Lamp Of The Universe, Hela and have now arrived at Zahn and their Purper album... 

 

 Already featured on Stoner HiVe:

Riastrad – Riastrad

Hermano – Clisson, France (Live album)

Purple Lung – Mystic Vision

Mount Palatine – Wormholy World

FULL ALBUM PREMIERE - Mount Palatine – Wormholy World

FULL ALBUM PREMIERE Sons of Gulliver - Tetrahedric Hellscape Cannon

Stargo – Violet Skies

Oreyeon – The Grotesque Within        

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and reviewers from the heavy underground around the globe.  Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and heavy rock albums.  The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart below.  This is a one-stop shop for the best new albums in the world…

 The Doom Charts for February 2026

The Doom Charts Peroration - January 2026

 

The Doom Charts Peroration 

January 2026

 

“Too much love will kill you
If you can’t make up your mind
Torn between the Doom Charts and the album you leave behind…”

~ probably mixheard Queen lyrics…

No we did not forget about December… But, as usual, it was hectic month, and there were less extra blurbs written for that December Edition than normal. So, we include the Peroration Blurbs from December in this, now, massive list for January! No less than 32 albums that all deserve your attention. Cause as you know, the albums below are on high rotation at one or more of the Contributors’s homestead. And this is why we do the Doom Charts in the first place, because we love heavy music so much, we can’t stop talking about it…

We often forget to post about the very cool Doom Charts Peroration Post, but since we are so busy with other stuff, this is at least a way to grab your attention again, and let you know that there are 32 albums on that list that desire your attention... And guess what, no less than 11 of those are written by one of the crazies that also occasionally write for Stoner HiVe... So, go read up on Backengrillen, Barbears, Flux Hound, Glórach, Gluecifer, Non, Orango Tango, Spooky Eyes, Sykofant, Triangulo Negro,Waster and all those others! They deserve it! 

The following are professions of love and adoration by Doom Charts Contributors for albums they could not stop spinning. Each month, the Doom Charts critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and other sorts of heavy rock and metal albums. The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart which is published on the First Friday of the new month. However, sometimes a love is so great, but for whatever reason the album unfortunately did not make the published Doom Charts Edition or because there were so many contributors in love with that one album, that multiple blurbs were written, and only the one got published… Well, you can peruse that love here…

 

The Doom Charts Peroration - January 2026

The Doom Charts For January 2026

 

DOOM CHARTS

JANUARY 2026

“Affection, it can’t be combined with
perfection something so divine
we could’ve had our own little world
but you chose to run away with the… Doom Charts…”

~ probably misheard lyrics by Slomosa

 

As we enter another year, where the Doom Charts scours the Heavy Underground in search of all those amazing albums. We cannot help but think about all those albums that have already been featured since 2015. And those that weren’t. Cause on average the Contributors vote for a total of 200 different albums per month. This month 218. Wow… That’s a lot of heavy music. And we shall continue to spread all that music and our love for it… Even though there’s all that Generative AI stuff to work through now as well. And the amount of it is growing. Some of it is pretty decent even. Some only part AI. And some will undoubtly slip through and make it on to the Doom Charts… We don’t understand at all why one would use a plagarism machine to spill out music, when one could just try to come up with something completely their own. I for one am not interested in what a machine can rehash out of the million ideas it has been fed. There are programs out there that can make your music sound perfect. I am not interested in perfect. Perfect is boring. And it’s not what people can actually do. There’s no fun there. I for one am interested in your idea, your take, your riffs and your energy… Your mistakes. It’s what makes it human. There might be nothing new under the sun, but your take of that will forever be your take and thats what matters and what makes it interesting…

Everything worth doing, is worth doing right… 

 

 

January started with a bang! Big and loud! A stunning array of amazing records released in the first month of the new year... And you can judge it yourself by ransacking the January 2026 edition of the Doom Charts! Forty amazing heavy albums that all shimmer like legendary gold and jewels...

Will be starting the rundown with Swarm's Air...

And of the ones that made it, my votes went out to:

New Mexican Doom Cult, Capacopter, GIANT, Lord Elephant, Temptress, RitualArcana, Redwood.band, Indica Blues, Hällas, Shamayna, TarLung - Band, Iron Head, Aeon Temple, Wild Fuzz Trip, MOTSUS, Voodoo Queen, Planet Hunter, Undulathund, HOT RAM, Gran Moreno, Slowrepeat, Liquid Pennies, SHΔDΞ and Hostal Handshake...

 Already featured on Stoner HiVe:

 

Iron Head - Fundamental

 

Hostal Handshake – Stone Oracle 

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and reviewers from the heavy underground around the globe.  Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and heavy rock albums.  The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart below.  This is a one-stop shop for the best new albums in the world…

The Doom Charts for January 2026