Black Mountain – IV

Black Mountain – IV

Jagjaguwar/Konkurrent – 2016

Rock, Hard, Psych

Rated: ***

Black Mountain. Everybody loves these Canadian crazies. Well, almost everybody. And the amazing Lucas belongs to the small percentage that doesn’t. Which makes his screed on his Paranoid Hitsophrenic one hell of sweet read. Even though I might not completely agree with Lucas and even though my testosterone level is definitely on par with most music fiends and homeless guys selling off their last testicle behind the supermarket, I am not the guy that will keep spreading the Black Mountain joint around. And I am definitely not the one to Bogart it and smoke it himself. Sure, the Canadian fellas released three good records, which for some reason didn’t get as much airtime over here as all the other psychedelic rock albums released in the same time period. There must be a reason. And while it might be too easy to state that the rest was simply better, I do think there must have been some truth to that simple fact. On their new release they opt to use a more spacey vibe and this definitely suits singer Amber Webber. And less of a sideshow and more a shared spotlight with singer/guitarist Stephen McBean, it is this unit of two that propels the new album IV. Where propel might be the wrong word chosen, since most of the jams are slow and arduous. Wilderness Heart made it to Number 17 of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2010. It would be strange to see them make it that high this time around. But then again, who can complain about opener Mothers Of The Sun; where Black Mountain sounds charmingly old-fashioned and old-fashioned good. Cause even though there’s nothing new under the sun or on the other side of the mountain, there is also nothing wrong with doing everything that has been done before on your own terms and for your own ears. And if you dig the opener, with its wild one riff and its floating synthescapes, you’re in for one hell of a trip with closer Space To Bakersfield. A fine drift-off it is…

(Written by JK)

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Top 20… Late additions… The albums we missed list...

Top 20… Late additions…

The albums we missed list...

Every year it’s the same story. We wholeheartedly dive head first into this list making thing. We end up with fifty or more albums that we have come to love so much that it is hard to twiddle them down to say the twenty that we use for the Stoner HiVe Countdown. But I do it anyway. And then while the countdown is running or has just passed one of your buddies hands you an album you completely missed and think. Shit. This should have been on there. Madman Tony prodded me while the countdown was running about Doctor Smoke and a few more. And when Yama came out on Lighttown Fidelty I immediately knew it would have made my list if I had heard it earlier. Same goes for Electric Citizen which I only learned about thanks to all you lovely freaks out there who voted for the album in the first place. So here are a few of those late additions. Albums that surely would have been on our list if we had heard them earlier…

Tony

Doctor Smoke - The Witching Hour

Yama – Ananta

Goya - Satan's Fire

Monster Magnet - Re-milking The Stars

Deaf Proof - Death Sounds Angry

Void Generator - Supersound

Doktor420

Chuck Norris Experiment - Right Between the Eyes

Palm Desert - Pearls From the Muddy Hollow

Yama – Ananta

Colour Haze - To The Highest Gods We Know

Well – Samsara

Bud Spencer Blues Explosion- BSB3

Snake Thursday – Iter

Child – Child

Het Droste Effect - We Are All Hallucinating

Motorpsycho - The Motorpnakotic Manuscripts

Lucas

Giza - I am the ocean, I am the sea

Maze of Roots - Two Chapters

Occultation - Silence In The Ancestral House

Phantomass - Self-Titled

The Skull - For Those Which Are Asleep

Zoltan - Tombs of the Blind Dead EP

Spectral Haze's - I.E.V.: Transmutated Nebula Remains

JK

Yama – Ananta

Electric Citizen – Sateen

Doctor Smoke – The Witching Hour

Snake Thursday – Iter

Wedge – Wedge

The Socks – The Socks

John Gallow – Violet Dreams

And guess what?! We are all sure we still missed even more albums that could or should have been on our list. So many amazing albums have been release in 2014 and we sure hope we will eventually discover them all. Just as we sincerely hope that many more will be released in 2015. But if you wanna read more about all those late additions… Those damn fine sounds of 2014! Visit Fast N Bulbous, cause he has a post about late additions and a 2014 breakdown that will rattle your brain for weeks!

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Super Doom Charts – Best of 2013

Super Doom Charts – Best of 2013

We return just in time for the massive Doom Chart post of 2013 as done by Lucas on his Paranoid Hitsophrenic… So head over there and see what the collective Doom Charts over the year and the end vote results have come up with. It turned out the list of the 40 greatest heavy rock albums of 2013!

Super Doom Charts – Best of 2013

 

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts - November

It’s that time of the month once again. You know what we’re talking about. The time to get down and dirty with some serious action. The time where you hit the streets at night and lust after that full moon when you scream and howl like a werewolf on the prowl. Indeed. It’s the time when the Doom Chart shakes its core and rearranges its bones. So check’em out on Lucas’s Paranoid Hitsophrenic. It’s where he makes sure, along with all the valuable contributors, everyone stays on top of everything hot ‘n heavy! Check out them guitar melting riffs man!

Sumeru – Sumeru

Sumeru – Sumeru

Self released – 2013

Rock, Metal, Doom, Stoner, Core, Southern

Rated: ****

Aussie five-piece metal band Sumeru sound like a garbage truck outside your window two hours before your alarm goes off.  Wait … no.  They sound like a garbage truck hauling dumpsters outside your hated enemy’s bedroom window three hours before the bastard is set to wake up.  Or maybe it sounds like the bastard losing a fight with a garbage truck outside anybody's bedroom window.  Any way you slice it, the garbage truck wins.  Sumeru IS that garbage truck.  Simply put, Sumeru sounds like brutal and hard-won victory.  Their debut self-titled EP contains four brisk cuts which bludgeon with a pounding rhythm section and eviscerate with a sandblasting two guitar attack.  Sumeru is new enough and the EP short enough to only give a glimpse of what they have to offer, but first impressions are of a band capable of southern-tinged Down-sized riffs with a hardcore edge.  One thing is certain, this baby moves with groove at a solid pace, mowing down any and all obstacles in its way, including that hated enemy of yours.  And when you see that hated enemy peeking his or her dreary head with its confused, frowning face out the window, beat your chest to a soundtrack of Sumeru.

(Written by Lucas)

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Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts - October

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts - October

Did you hear those beasts scratching at your door the past few days? They were coming to drag you towards your inevitable doom. And what better way to end it and checking out by checking out and listening to that sound that belongs to the end of the month… Check out this months Super Doom Chart on Lucas’s Paranoid Hitsophrenic. It’s where he makes sure, along with all the valuable contributors, everyone stays on top of everything hot ‘n heavy! Check out them guitar melting riffs man!

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts - September

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts - September

It’s that time of the month once again. Mr. Charley’s at the door demanding payment. The bottles of whisky on the floor are truly empty. No more cigarettes and you can hear the wolves howling outside. And even the loud sounds down in your belly are getting vicious and dangerous. The end of the month! The fat is in the fire! So it’s time to check out what has changed in the Super Doom Chart that is spreading like an ugly disease. Check it out on Lucas’s Paranoid Hitsophrenic. It’s where he makes sure, along with all the valuable contributors, everyone stays on top of everything hot ‘n heavy! Check out them guitar melting riffs man!

Bison, Bison - Waiting For Saturn

Bison, Bison - Waiting For Saturn

We thank Lucas for showing us this great video accompanying a great song by Portland's own stoner colossus Bison, Bison. The video is the last in their "Tribute Trilogy". This time showing their appreciation of John Carpenter's 1988 sci-fi masterwork 'They Live'. Check out Bison Bison at http://bisonbison.bandcamp.com/!

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts - June

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts

It’s that time of the month once again. Your girl’s on the rag, you’re almost out of dough, the beer collection in the fridge is getting dangerously low and the cat’s meowing like crazy from hunger. The end of the month has come and gone and the paycheck is yet to be mailed. It’s that time of the month. The time where the Doom Chart changes dramatically and spreads like wildfire! Check out this months polled charts on Lucas’s Paranoid Hitsophrenic to find out about all the new entries and stay on top of everything hot ‘n heavy! Check out them riffs man!

The Great Khan – The Rise of Khan

The Great Khan – The Rise of Khan

Bilocation Records– 2013

Progressive, Funk, Stoner

Rated: ****

Israel’s The Great Khan doesn’t have time to mess around with no dinky Mongolian Empire.  They’ve got bigger, more expansive aspirations in mind. Uncorking an army of riffs they are sent off to the far corners of the seventies.  Then, a hammer is taken to those seventies sounds and they are blasted across the universe.  Prog, funk, synth and horns all make their presence clearly felt with blood, sweat and tears on the tape reels.  And were riffs mentioned earlier?  Because those things are represented here in vast quantities, found most abundantly in the gaseous state of funk.  This thing’s got some groove alright.  Alligator daddies mingle with warlords on a spaceship Cadillac.  It’s a cruise around the electric highway of a ringed planet.  It’s a progressive take on the stoner genre with a hungry eye towards the ten-thousand-seat venue.  And here’s the kicker, this massive army of empire, this cast of thousands, this whole seven song progressive, funk, stoner album is all the work of a single man!  Yes, folks, you really can be anything you want in life, even an overlord.  The Great Khan is proof of that.

(Written by Lucas)

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Liblikas – Wooden Spaceship

Liblikas – Wooden Spaceship

Self-Released – 2013

Prog, Psychedelic, Metal, Stoner

Rated: ****

Lo!  And Liblikas unleashed a chugging, churning and mulching juggernaut of a sound, angelic in consistency, demonic in intensity and almost biblical in scope.  Drums and guitars put in work like pistons fired by the fuel of a thousand goblins, on a narrative track that tells road stories of epic proportions.  Heavy and intense as being trapped in a car crusher, ‘Wooden Spaceships’ is more smothering than abrasive however, and there’s an undeniable, almost folk-like warmth to the record that invites the listener in before dinner is served… But unfortunately, no matter how inviting; you’re still on the menu.  Jazzy arrangements with teeth let you know this Estonian quintet is willing to fight for its meals and nothing comes easy.  That’s just the way they like it.  Can you make it out in one piece?  There’s a really cool concept behind this record, and with Joop’s permission, I’d like to reprint it for you right now:

“[Wooden Spaceship] tells the story of a man who awakes to find himself in our bewildered world, with no recollection of his past, trying desperately to get his innocent and unwitting head around the everyday proceedings of a world hell-bent on needless hustle and haste, a world he now finds himself stranded in. Over the course of his journey, he lives through a wide spectrum of emotions never felt before: amazement, insanity, love, panic. Eventually finding it all a little too much to bear, he flies away into the peaceful space.”

(Written by Lucas)

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Huge Rat Attacks – Organic Babies

Huge Rat Attacks – Organic Babies

Self-Released – 2013

Psychedelic, Stoner

Rated:  ***

Veteran twin cities’ quartet Huge Rat Attacks will be unleashing their third full-length album on July 27, you can listen to a two track preview stream on their bandcamp page right now.  On ‘Organic Babies’ HRA spend the majority of their time feeling their way along the flowing walls of a lysergic truck stop, taking care not to be swallowed alive by the breathing curtains.  At the truck stop, the band picks up some pep pills in the form of the riffs, which provide a sludgy prescription for a mostly carefully navigated course.  Largely atmospheric, HRA find themselves in a miasma of psychedelic sound walls, which begin to melt and flow, but they’ve got to get as close to them as possible, even though every flowing wave of wallpaper threatens to knock them away, they’ve got to stay in tight to those riff walls because those breathing curtains of atmosphere may just inhale them or eat them alive.  So they spend most of their time feeling their way along the flowing walls of a lysergic truck stop, taking care not to be swallowed alive by the breathing curtains…

(Written by Lucas)

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Paranoid Hitsophrenic - The Monthly Super Doom Charts

Paranoid Hitsophrenic - Super Doom Charts

Wanna stay on top of everything hot 'n heavy? Check out the monthly polled charts on Paranoid Hitsophrenic! Lucas did a damn fine job collection, studying and delivering all the facts. The first edition referring to the month of May is now online. Check out them riffs!

Super Doom Charts

Roadkillsoda – Oven Sun

Roadkillsoda – Oven Sun

Self-Released – 2013

Stoner, Punk

Rated: **

From Romania comes the disgustingly named four piece Roadkillsoda.  There is a restless spirit at work on ‘Oven Sun’ as riffs writhe and squirm under its glare like multi-legged insects exposed beneath an upturned rock.  The vocals and lyrics are defined by a punkish spirit of pissed off and exhausted concern, creating apathy and a piss poor disposition.  The band is known to rock out with some freewheelin’ solos when the mood strikes them.  Mostly, Roadkillsoda music is characterized by distillery fog grunge seen through the lens of a busted bottle of southern rock.  Ten songs have spilled out on the ground averaging about three and a half minutes apiece.   Sometimes, the band’s convertible picks up a speeding ticket as songs fly in and fly out without much fuss. Before you realize it three songs and not even ten minutes have passed.  We all know the feeling, that speeding convertible is guaranteed to hit a few more fuzzy creatures along the way creating more of their particular brew.  Now, what you want to do is, see, go down to the highway side and peel yourself a pack of songs off the road.

(Written by Lucas)

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Elektrohahn und die Legebatterie – Commander Horst Control

Elektrohahn und die Legebatterie – Commander Horst Control

Self-Released – 2013

Biker Rock, Stoner, Psychedelic

Rated: ***

‘Commander Horst Control’ takes the listener on a two wheel trip through biker territory, rough and ready rock n roll, freaking out the squares with some dark psychedelia and even some elektropunk Nintendo sounds (see the intro).  The darkness that Elektrohahn und die Legebatterie drapes like a leather jacket across their otherwise straight-ahead rock sound comes in the form of the steadily thrumming bass groove, which is both hypnotic and addictive.  It forms the solid backbone that the band needs; it’s the highway in other words, upon which the rest of the band burns rubber.  Grunge influences also sneak into the affair, neglecting the formal biker dress code for flannel and shredded baggy denim in the form of some dissonant harmonies and syncopated rhythms.  But always it comes back to the Cream / Blue Cheer / Steppenwolf holy trinity of heavy metal thunder.  And make sure you bring a little patience along with you and ride this trip through to the end of the road, because there is a hidden track buried in the back of the album worth investigating.  Overall, a solid and steady cruise that takes care of rock n roll business.

(Written by Lucas)

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Diablo Strange – Sordid Tales

Diablo Strange – Sordid Tales

Self-Released – 2013

Rock, Stoner, Hard

Rated: ***

Feast your ears on eleven tales of hard and fuzzy prestidigitation.  Your capable hosts for the next 40 minutes can trade punches with the stoner rock heavyweights all night long but are just as quick to weave an intoxicating spell in a top hat and penguin suit.  A gruff voice, fuzz bass and guitar that relies less heavily on effects than on strong riffs power these tales forward.  Meet Diablo Strange.  A magician?  No!  A stoner rock band hailing from Moncton, New Brunswick, a province on Canada’s choppy east coast.  The Maritime provinces were throwing stoner bands out to the far corners of the earth long before any of the rest of the country knew what the hell they were doing over there.  Diablo Strange does well to live up to that nobly stoned heritage.  So hop into the shaggin’ wagon and drive cross country, drawn to the heavy aroma and gravelly voiced siren call of the Maritimes, you now have the perfect soundtrack for the road trip!

(Written by Lucas)

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New Keepers of the Water Towers – Cosmic Child

New Keepers of the Water Towers – Cosmic Child

Listenable Records - 2013

Prog, Space Rock, Stoner Metal

Rated: ****

What is this, which stands before me; prog, space rock, folk with hints of Irish roots?  How can that be, aren’t these dudes Swedish?  Is it metal?  I’m asking too many questions but how can I stop?  … mind … bending … Let’s give the music that catch-all label for all things strange, fascinating, hideous, oblong, unwieldy and/or bulbous:  Progressive.  After all, New Keepers of the Water Towers’ second (third) album can be any and all those things at a given moment.  It’s also been known inside the Hive to be stunning, ethereal, elegant, regal and magnificent.  This is the parentage of the ‘Cosmic Child’, a dichotomy of beauty and deformity.  The New Keepers keep the metal to a quiet roar on this one, preferring to let airy harmonies and ever-changing textures do the talking.  Is ‘Cosmic Child’ an intergalactic journey through the subconscious mind of God?  One could see it that way.  It’s progressive rock, riding rhythms through the cosmic spaceways.  It’s inscrutable music in a fluid environment.

(Written by Lucas)

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Jacknife Holiday – Mea Culpa

Jacknife Holiday – Mea Culpa

Self-Released - 2013

Sludge, Hardcore, Doom

Rated: ****

Jacknife Holiday is heavy company for your delicate ears.  Their lead singer is currently serving time in prison (although he’ll be out shortly), not to make light of a bad situation, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he was sent up for kicking listeners’ heads in because that’s what the band does on record.  Their latest effort, a 4-track EP entitled ‘Mea Culpa’, is like a fistfight.  After a short slow intro down a dark alley that can only hint at the coming shitstorm, the heart rate increases as things get heated before a calm washes over the proceedings just as things are about to really fly off the handle.  The eye of the shitstorm, where instinct takes over, is reserved for slow hulking riffs.  The air gets thicker and the world slows down around the band’s raging fury.  Overall ‘Mea Culpa’ is made up of these rotating moments, downhill momentum that comes upon brick walls of confrontation.  It’s a short and intense blast of doom sludge poured into a foundation of hardcore and then whipped into a frenzy.

(Written by Lucas)

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Anta - Centurionaut

Anta - Centurionaut

Thrones & Dominions - 2013

Prog, Doom

Rated: ****

Today we will be looking at an instrumental prog quartet out of Bristol.  On the surface, they don’t seem to fit in to the stoner rock world.  But look a little closer and you will find all the requisite elements are at their disposal: they play heavy, trippy, riffy and downtuned.   Anta play a reverent style of seventies prog with organ that can both uplift and shower horror upon listeners.  But horror music is not the focus here.  Rather, a state of waking daydream fantasy reigns, touched by supernatural elements.  The constant threat of a tangible close encounter with that which should not be is prevalent.  Such is the power and indeed the purpose of prog, to witness the unseen, to tear the veil and see beyond that, which is apparent.  Odd-metre rhythms like slaps to the head and dream-like melodies with thorny branches take the listeners on a bumpy ride to wild mindscapes.  It’s a wakeup call that whatever one can imagine has a reality all its own.  Centurionaut, out June 14 on the band’s website, is a journey to the skyborne realms of Egyptian gods.

(Written by Lucas)

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Hammerhands - Glaciers

Hammerhands - Glaciers

Self-Released - 2013

Sludge, Drone, Post-Metal

Rated: ***

Forceful aggression meets epic heaviness on a battlefield of massive sandstone pillars, which swing like pendulums and grind like pistons.  The band got it right when they named themselves Hammerhands.  Their album ‘Glaciers’ is some 62 minutes of hair-trigger tension with the occasional outburst of naked brutality.  Throat tearing vocals, choppy guitars and blunt edged drums lay an unsympathetic beatdown on listeners.  When those pillars get moving, they combine in such a way as to make an inescapable killing field, a maze of death.  It’s intricate and frightening in its intensity.  Hardcore elements mixed with doom, sludge and the panoramic wastelands of drone create a sparse, syncopated open field that feels more like a prison than a picnic.  Wide-open vistas do not always capture the sense of freedom, sometimes they can be suffocating and an unwelcoming doorway to a Great Beyond of personal nullification.  This isn’t for the weak-willed or faint of heart, the first five tracks will isolate and bludgeon the listener with smashing rhythms, closing track “Equus” is a 30 minute soundscape that will finally implode the listener’s skull.  There is no preparation for this Canadian band’s assault.

(Written by Lucas)

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