Number 4

 

 

Number 4

Almost fifty points. Before we enter the Top 3, we have a Number 4 to contend with! And it sits there, all seasoned and spicy after that almost fifty-point jump from Howling Giant on Number 5. We must confess, even though we immediately loved a track or two, three on this album, it has not been clicking with us as hard as their earlier releases. But that doesn’t mean it’s not good, cause those earlier albums clicked hard and apparently it clicked just as hard with all you lovely voters out there, cause it ended up on Number 4! They made the Top 20 Countdown before, all the way to Number 2 back in 2019 and their newest album ranked high on the October Doom Charts. A new drummer, a change in vocalists and almost no keywork changes the sounds; but not for the worse. It becomes more fluid and eclectic, grandiose without overstating it, subdued but never easy-going or laidback. The new drummer has a bit of a Ginger Baker kind of style going on and that guitar work seems to have blossomed by all the changes, more slow-burning riffs and smoldering guitar lines. And with the female vocals it sounds as if they’ve arisen like a phoenix, cast off shadows and that better days are ahead… Yes, and we all shall join their cult, cause just listening to the album while typing these words, its starting to click more and more, so I will be rocking this one until tomorrow’s sky…

 

On Number 4 we find…

Hippie Death Cult – Helichrysum


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Stoner HiVe’s Quick Fire Friday

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s Quick Fire Friday

Another Quick Fire Friday round today! All thanks to the amount of singles and videos coming in lately and the fact we had to get the Peroration Post ready for the Doom Charts. Loads of reviews are almost done. But can’t completely find the time to finish them… But for the Quick Fire Friday craziness we only use a small amount of words to get the good word out! The good word about something heavy and something cool! Check it out below… And we know… There is so much out there, so much good and heavy stuff, and we just simply cannot ever do it all justice. But here it is… Another Stoner HiVe Quick Fire Friday! And it burns hot like molten lava!

Pipe Dreamer – Past The Point Of No Return

Their debut album No Solace For The Soulless was released in January 2021 and reviewed on the HiVe in February. And on September 18th they will send out the first single Past The Point Of No Return for their upcoming EP The Past Is Just A Memory. Which will be ‘a reflection of the many aspects of loss and the feelings left behind. It’s a cathartic piece of sonic art that will resonate with those missing someone in their lives.’ Cathartic, that’s how we ended our review of their debut record. And that’s how this blackened, post metal and sludge single will work as well… Especially on repeat…

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Prosthetic Bung - Mr. Neckofthewoods

Prosthetic Bung, straight out of Toronto, Canada! A two-piece consisting of Steff & Zach who do this weird, chaotic, stream of consciousness noise experiment. Indeed, five highly improvised tracks, recorded in a cloud of smoke and what possibly might be a fit of mental derangement. And since releasing Mr. Neckofthewoods they have already released a new selection of improvisational craziness called Schallplatten der Unergründlich Büngüs. So, better check’m all out, before they release a next one!

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Bloodthorne – El Presidente

They’re about to release their new album entitled Cosmic Passengers, and El Presidente is the lead single of that album. We are talking about doom, stoner trio Bloodthorne from Bristol, Tennessee, USA. Stoner metal with a definite doom trod, a penchant for bluesy guitar work and a Southern touch. These seven and a half minutes of riffs and that later forward pushing metal holds a lot of promise for the rest of the album.. Can’t wait for September to arrive!

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Halcyon Bluefish - Promised Land

Featuring Andrew Paine from Ethyl Ehter and Filthy Hippies and on this track South African hero Desmond Kannemeyer it’s Promised Land by the Halcyon Bluefish duo. New wave, dark wave, gothic touched, vaporous and spellbinding. That Mongrel Records definitely knows how to pick out the crazy good ones…

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Wolf Prayer – Oblivion

Are you ready to float off with the fuzzy dream rockers Wolf Prayer? Check out Oblivion, the second single from the Spell Of The Crimson Eye album. Cosmic, hypnotizing and groovy! And that luscious incredibly soulful seventies key-work later on, yowzah!

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Earthblood - Primal Fury

And then there’s the Earthblood three to bring it all back down to earth with an explosive bang! Primal Fury is the lead single for the Primal Fury EP to be released on Inverse Records, September 22nd. Furious sludge and doom metal, delivered at runaway train speed and running over all that stand in its way. Zang!

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Hippie Death Cult – Better Days

We all love a good cult! Well, all and only the rocking kinds! Like Hippie Death Cult! And they will release their new album Helichrysum on Heavy Psych Sounds on October 20th! But the second single Better Days is out now and takes it all back towards those haze days, sixties and seventies rock, but with a doom touch and a glowing psychedelic soul heart. Loving it! Buzzing over here!

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Delco Detention – It Came From The Basement

 

 

Delco Detention – It Came From The Basement
Self released – 2021
Rock, Hard, Stoner, Blues
Rated: ****

Flashback. So there I am, around nine, perhaps ten, years old. Driving my parents mad because the computer is downstairs and I’m playing this new game where I’m stuck outside this mansion and do not know how to get in there. My parents are going nuts, because of the constant 8 bit chirping of the computer crickets. The following day I’ve been banned for a week from using the Commodore64. So, instead I play with toy soldiers and this Lego train set I remodeled into a haunted house. Or perhaps I went out and played soccer with my buddies from down the street, rang doorbells and quickly ran away or looked for a way to get my hands on an ice cream or two. Any of that is definitely possible. What I sure as hell did not do was ask my musical heroes if they would like to jam with me and my dad. But, hence the long winded intro, that is exactly what Tyler Pomerantz did. The little man is nine years old and starts writing these kick ass songs in his basement together with his dad Adam. They do some covers as well and one of the Clutch covers got the attention of Neil Fallon who reached out and said, why don’t I add my vocals to one of the covers…

Sure, that happens, but Tyler then goes out and just asks, Neil Fallon, from Clutch, if he can sing one of his own material. He agreed, with some hesitation, and The Joy Of Homeschooling turns out so freaking cool, you just cannot imagine. Tyler plays guitar like an old hand, leaving his sound hanging, his riffs rounded out and hands you this sweet small solo with a mic drop kind of attitude. O’ and then he also picks up the bass and gives you a mean bass line and wicked loop! And one must confess, those lyrics and vocal lines Neil throws across it are sheer perfection and give it this gritty mean ass edge.

Well, that was the first kill and after that, for eight months straight Tyler and his dad go about recording fifteen tracks, with the aid of all these tool cool for school cats from bands like Mississippi Bones, She Love Pablo, Earthless, Hippie Death Cult, Fu Manchu, Lionize, The Age Of Truth, Thunderbird Divine, King Snake, The Mike Dillon Band and Blind Melon. The result is one freaking good hard rocking album steeped in the blues and born from stonerrock. Hearing that guitar, riff, wail and screech; you would not believe the little man is only nine and he has only been playing for a year or two. There’s feeling there, there’s heart, soul and pure love for the strings. And hey, the Dad can sure hit his skins as well; now if only the cat and dog could also play instruments they would have a full band right there, down in the basement. The two are called Delco Detention and the album is wickedly titled: It Came From The Basement.

 We could single out more favorites on the album, like Dirt School with Eddie Brnabic and Ben Jackon from Hippie Death Cult or From The Shadows with these cats named Mike Descoteaux and Bob Mavity, 422 with Kevin McNamara from The Age Of Truth and both Werewolvery tracks with Jared Collins of Mississippi Bones… But to be honest, they’re all fucking cool! Chaos, destruction, rock’n roll! It Came From The Basement!

(Written by JK)

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The Doom Chart for May 2021

 

 

Doom Charts

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~ Anaïs Nin

Here comes May. The wind is still fresh but the sun rises high in the sky. The golden rays nurture the soils and nature awakens. It’s time to install the summer tire set and do the oil change on our rides. I’m sure you’ve never been so happy to be back at mowing your lawn or preparing your yard or doing whatever you need to do outside in order to be ready for June knocking at our doors. It almost feels like if we are out from a long cryogenic sleep. The long pandemic winter is over. The widespread access to immunization is making the return to normalcy a more and more tangible thing. Fuck yes, we’ll soon gather in a feast of friends! The hope flows in our veins!

May is the month the most associated with fertility and I can insure you our Stoner/Doom scene has been very fecund. It’s like all these pregnant bands decided to give birth at once. Fuck guys, the nursery is full! My guess is they all wanted to be ready to take back the road. I know they are eager to show us in person their new babies but for now, let’s enjoy these digital pictures that have been brought to us along this past month. ~ Marc-Eric Gagnon

And there they were once again! Live on June 1st! The all new and all heavy Doom Charts! An amazing month once more... Personal votes went out to Surfsquatch, Book of Wyrms, A Better Tomorrow, Atomic Vulture, Savanah, Monster Magnet, Khirki, Robots of the Ancient World, Dr. Colossus, Alastor, Vokonis & Hippie Death Cult... Don't think I ever had that many choices make the final list? And of course that Number 1… Circle of Days… We mentioned it around the start of May; what an album…  

Gonna be listening to them all again; starting with Melissa's Devil's Mask album... Check'm out! Check'm all out!

Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and album 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 Chart for May 2021

Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

 

 

Stoner HiVe’s 

Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

Red Fang
King Buffalo
Hippie Death Cult
Atomic Vulture
The Lance Vance Vengeance
Black Mirrors
Robots Of The Ancient World
Hot Breath
Fugentpecker
Per Wiberg

Hippie Death Cult – Circle Of Days

 

Hippie Death Cult – Circle Of Days
Heavy Psych Sounds – 2021
Rock, Garage, Psych, Stoner
Rated: *****

We’re been on a gigantic Portland trip that we did not even realize until Anthony Gaglia from LáGoon and The Crooked Whispers mentioned that both Robots Of The Ancient World and Hippie Death Cult were also from his town. And even though we were a bit late to join the cult back when those Hippies started, once 111 dropped, back in 2019, we immediately joined up and dreamed about getting their band name tattooed on one of our extremities. You guess which one. The freaks delivered that amazing album through Cursed Tongue Records and their new one Circle Of Days will soon be out on Heavy Psych Sounds. Delivering almost forty minutes of heavy goodness the five tracks move distinctly more towards the psychedelic garage, fuzzed out rock and stoner atmospheres than that world shocking earlier album, which had more doom and a more monolithic approach. This opts to weave more intricate tapestries and they transition to that form by way of opener Red Meat Tricks, which is the doomiest of the five. It’s also the track that immediately shows how the new album operates, making all the different instruments and vocals take their separate spotlight before coming all together in a dazzling spectacle of colors. Circle Of Days is the perfect follow-up to 111…

(Written by JK)

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Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

 

Stoner HiVe’s 

Top 10 Most Listened Albums Last Week…

Karma To Burn  

Robots Of The Ancient World

Skraeckoedlan

Bad Absalom 

Superlynx 

  Madhouse

Atomic Vulture

Stonus

Hippie Death Cult

 Prins Svart

Number 2

Number 2

And what we mentioned about the Top 6 being in a league of their own considering the amount of points they all received, well, the Top 2 positions are even further removed from those other four we mentioned the past four days. Cause we jump almost 450 points from Salem’s Bend on Number 3 to reach the Number 2 spot… Indeed, this album received so many votes it almost broke the scale. And it’s only on the Silver Medal position! Do you realize what that means for the Number 1 spot? Cursed Tongue Records released this nugget somewhere around June and it immediately made everyone’s jaw drop, head bang and blood rush! It was our very own Reek Of STOOM that wrote it about back then for the HiVe. “… an album of Intensity, Intelligence and Invention. The band’s new opus, reads like a Rocker's almanac: a mental cognizance of every Great band you ever heard...” Exactly, it’s all there he mentions the ‘dreadnought riffs’, ‘heavy blues monoliths’, ‘glistening knives of fuzz’ and the ‘fabric of psychedelic doom’. “The band have unearthed a album that is immediately evocative of all the 70's Heavy Blues giants and the influences can be heard throughout… But Retro it is not... This is Modern Heavy Rock music of the very Highest Order that just has enough of that nostalgic feel to be familiar..” And Bucky Brown immediately predicted it on their bandcamp page: “You’re probably gonna want to keep your AOTY checklist handy and mark this debut near the very top.” Second place, the Silver Medal of 2019 goes to!

Hippie Death Cult - III

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Hippie Death Cult – 111

Hippie Death Cult – 111

Cursed Tongue Records – 2019

Stoner, Doom, Sludge

Rated: ****

Portland, Oregon has long been lauded as the US Capital of Doom and it's no surprise that it should once again spawn an album of Intensity, Intelligence and Invention. Hippie Death Cult's new opus, 111 reads like a Rocker's almanac: a mental cognizance of every Great band you ever heard... It's all here - laid bare, unashamed and honest. Opener 'Sanctimonious' sets the stage with dry - ice and dreadnought riffs… A Heavy Blues monolith to the mighty Sabbaths and Iron Claws of yore. 'Breeder's Curse' stabs glistening knives of fuzz through the fabric of Psychedelic Doom, grappling hooks and gravel-gargled voice on counter-attack. 'Myrtu's gentle guitar refrain provides a brief, calm oasis... Reflective and wistful before the punishment begins again and the raging maelstrom that is 'Pigs' stomps and stamps its command on your ears. HDC have unearthed a album that is immediately evocative of all the 70's Heavy Blues giants and the influences can be heard throughout… But Retro it is not... This is Modern Heavy Rock music of the very Highest Order that just has enough of that nostalgic feel to be familiar. A Triumph!

(Written by Reek of STOOM)

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