Number 3

 

 

Number 3

Today we enter the Top 3 according to all of the votes that came in! We can’t thank you all enough for voting for and following the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2023! We love doing it and with the feedback we receive, we love doing it even more! So, thank you! And today, we jump almost thirty points from Number 4 to Number 3. Hippie Death Cult’s Helichrysum album missed the Bronze by almost thirty points. Their earlier album took the Number 1 spot on the Countdown back in 2019 and this one feels, in many ways, like a righteous continuation of that album. Seeds were planted and the new one feels like a blossoming of that sound into sonic and cosmic proportions. We wrote a few words about the album back in September, when it also took the Top spot on the Doom Charts. Where we wrote: “Their psychedelic doom, their highly fuzzed out take on it, with sludge tones and kraut hypnotism has always been a band that knew how to catch a groove and follow the flow. And where their earlier album perhaps started off a bit slower, a bit more open spaced, the new one makes its intentions clear from the start. The opening track, with its ominous riff, soon even denser and darker, before it’s allowed to open up, turns more galactic as we continue on and the vocals wind itself along the echoing guitar. And that cosmic edge, turns it all into something even more hypnotic than we are used to. Hypnotic, addictive and obliterating, this is the new galactic drug of choice for every heavy rock junkie…”

On Number 3 we find…

Domkraft – Sonic Moons

 

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Magnetic Eye Records

Review on Stoner HiVe

Number 3

 

 

 

Number 3

We’ve arrived at the Bronze Medal position. The Number 3 spot. Thanks to everyone that voted we got almost crushed to death by the heaviness of Abyssal Trip, that Spelljammer album on Number 4. But we survived and jump almost three hundred points to reach Number 3. Where we find a band that has made the third spot of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown before and a Number 14 spot, a Number 9 spot , O’ and a Number 1 spot… So, we can safely assume all your crazy heavy rock fiends out there, that vote for the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown, love everything this band does. And I reckon we could have known the album that was released in March of this year would make the Top 20 Countdown. It ended up on Number 3, thanks to all your votes. A band that got started as a side-project has been turning everybody on ever since its first release. And where the first four records could even really be seen as side-project releases; it was the fifth album that discovered a sound that they slowly wanted to churn into a maelstrom of perfection. With the drummer and vocalist that joined back then in 2014 they turned to perfect those rumbling drums, those circling riffs, that drawling voice and make it all their very own sound. Ever more propelled by a powerful groove and a thundering boogie the tracks take a life of their own. With some blues and old roots influences they have become what they possibly set out to become from the beginning… It can’t get better than this, can it? On Number 3:

Greenleaf – Echoes From A Mass

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

Number 3

Number 3

We jump 30 points from Saint Karloff on Number 4 to enter the Top 3. And here we find an album that held the Number 1 spot the first few days the lists came in. An album we had definitely expected on the Top 20; but which I had not thought would be among the very top of said list. But it is here and we ofcourse put it on repeat when all you crazy music fiends out there started voting for it. We were instantly hooked when it came out in May of this year through Ripple Music. But that was May, we must confess, and the albums that came out throughout the year afterwards made us forget about this super record. But now, back on repeat, we get it! We get it for sure! Cause their super fuzzy blend of seventies inspired blues and subtle rock ‘n roll has a very sweet and sunny  charm. It ticks all the right boxes of early hardrock and super stoner grooves. There are ofcourse influences of Zeppelin and Sabbath; but the psychedelic take on some tracks, the occult atmosphere on others and the huge gestures sets them apart from those early bands and all the groups that show their colors more. This powertrio knows where to grab the mustard and then produce something super infectious. So once more, over we go, on the Bronze Medal position, with once again, seventies inspired awesomeness… Number 3 of 2019 is!

Salem's Bend - Supercluster

Homepage

Bandcamp

Facebook

Number 3

Number 3

And now as we enter the Top 3 and see which record ends up with the Bronze Medal, we can probably guess which ones ended up on Number 2 and Number 1 as well. I am pretty sure you all know which. There was no escaping that fact. On a lot of the lists that came in the three were riding high and glorious on top. So we pass Graveyard and their Peace album on Number 4 with almost thirty points to go see about that album on position Number 3. Which is once again a band from Sweden and once again an album that has seen many editions of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown. Number 9 back in 2014, Number 14 in 2012 and Number 1 last year. This record continues where the last album left off. And thus; it gives us their very own groove and energy, it’s their bounce, it’s their stomp and you cannot help but bounce and stomp along. Chuck full of majestic riffs and amazing hooks it shows once again that these cats know what their signature sound has become. And even if you feel for a second that the album sounds like the band sounded on the last one, you realise that it is the sound which drew you in in the first place. And hey, riding that green water rapid makes everything alright! All the time!

So here is the Bronze Medal, which goes to the Number 3 position... Where we find...

Greenleaf - Hear The Rivers