Number 16

 

 

Number 16

Their 2022 album ended up on Number 12 of that years Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown. And it’s great to see them enter the Countdown once again. With 30 points more than Goya, the Germany quartet deliver another selection of heavy rocking, seventies inspired, blues based, psych rockers. This time around perhaps not the diesel blues variant, but more the desert inspired blues, surging through every composition that still vibrates at the perfect vintage pitch. And yes, sometimes or even often, we might assume the vocalist to be the bastard son of Jim Morrison. But the music has drifted more away from The Doors and into heavier territory. And that is never a bad thing! Signed to the majestic Ripple Music label for this album the four turn their heavy blues into true hard rocking power. A lot of groove and boogie that keeps the energy flowing the right way, up until the middle track, serving as the perfect resting point to breathe, admire the guitar work and the scenery created by these blues spirited four. The album is another thunder rocker and at those moments when the organ is allowed to flourish, punctuate and penetrate, it all becomes irresistible!

On Number 16 we find:

 

PARALYZED - RUMBLE & ROAR

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Stoner HiVe on Heavy Road

Number 12 on the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2022

 

Number 16

 

 

Number 16

I have forgotten to mention the jump in amount of points with every spot, but we’ve now jumped a mere four points from Blood Incantation on Number 17 to reach the album on Number 16. Where we find another heavy progressive entry. But this time they stay in that lane of musicianship. Imploring a bit of psychedelia, touching on the blues roots of yore and winking at all that lovely kraut movement and space rock, the seven tracks on this album shine with harmonic brilliance. The way they weave their progressive threads throughout the record is impressive and shows their every growing knowledge of the grand universal energies of rock. Sophisticated compositions like velvet to your ears spin their tales like the myths this story is based on. These echoes have been ringing throughout the universe since existence and the Italian four have managed to capture them all and present them to you all bottled up and shooting around like a multitude of high voltage electric charges…

According to all of your votes, on Number 16 we find:

Mr. Bison - Echoes From The Universe

 

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Heavy Psych Sounds

 

Number 16

 

 

Number 16

We jump a mere 6 points to reach Number 16… Mutoid Man’s Mutants blasted us all silly with their version of metal on Number 17 but on Number 16 we find something entirely different. It’s another and different reflection of all that heavy that resides in the underground. They variations seem endless, infinite one might say. And on this five-track album the three from Manchester, UK go through various variations themselves. Offering the listener a gaze into a different world, by way of prog and psych, stoner and metal and a blues roots influence. Once again an album that rode high in to the Doom Charts, Number 2 in November. Starting off highly atmospheric, they immediately touch on more stoner-oriented rock on the second track. But perhaps the biggest applause should go to the fact that they manage to capture so much depth in their sound one moment, opting to make things small the next and ending grandiose and huge whenever they feel the song needs it. So, dive with me, through the looking glass and into the world created by this album…

On Number 16 we find…




Ritual King - The Infinite Mirror



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Number 16

 

 

Number 16

We’ve arrived at Number 16… And we did this after only jumping three points from Kryptograf and their The Eldorado Spell album that we found rocking out on Number 17. But this album we find on Number 16 was an early entry into the Top 20; all those early lists we received all had high points for this Sabbath mood setting hardrock and metal album. Indeed, this is classic metal, vintage doom, proto rock, and all done so extremely well, intense craftmanship and perfectly balanced. Some minor touches of the eighties makes this pure high grade NWOBHM as much as the traditional take we all fell in love with in the first place. And those vocals, the harmonies, the leads, the lyrics, they bring it all together. And that speed up in the title track, with that guitar work, yowzah!  Or as the honorable Bucky Brown stated: “Whether you’re in the mood for killer solos, vocal harmonies, menacing breakdowns or searing leads, this band has you fulfilled. Everything about this is bad ass.” Bad ass indeed! On Number 16 we find…

Early Moods – Early Moods


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Out on Riding Easy Records

On to Number 15!

Number 16

 

 

Number 16

That amazing psychedelic Endless Searcher album by Maha Sohona that we found yesterday on Number 17 is now surpassed with a mere ten points by the album we find on Number 16. And what a fitting year to find this album in the Top 20 Countdown. Since something else came out baring the same name. Well, the progressive metal, post metal with guttural vocals, the doom, the sludge, it comes in waves, with furious riffs and blasting rhythms. And then there is that spiritual touch, that esoteric feeling, that divine hint, all coming at you through something which can only be classified as a ‘total experience’. Released in March the ten tracks will submerge you with their grandiose layering and gigantic gestures;  which are both brutal as beautiful. On Number 16 we find!

Dvne - Etemen Ænka   

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Number 16

 

 

 Number 16

We pass Arcadian Child on Number 17 with only 17 points to find ourselves on the Number 16 position, which once again features two albums. And I must confess that the amount of votes for one of them really surprised me, not because I do not dig the album or understand the heaviness, I guess I just did not dive deep enough into it as all of you did. Even though it featured highly on the Doom Charts. But we’ll mention the other one first; cause that was a HiVe favorite and one mentioned by that dastardly Reek of Stoom. He wrote something like: “Seven titanic tracks of first-degree sensorial assault. Crunch, crush and charisma - seismic bass tones pinning currents of savage Stoner riffery with clean, clear vocals soaring like a hunting Kestrel. Jazz-infused beats suddenly give way to Doomy smatterings of harsh abrasive riffs, pierced by sweet guitar noodles. The album delivers breadth, width and height: the full dimensions of Modern Underground Metal in all it's geometric gelignite.” Right on! The other release is a classic in every sense of the word, classic metal, classic hardrock and classic compositions. It’s classy, has many albums outclassed and is almost unclassifiable. Sorry about that, we just dove deep into this magical Melbourne time machine and saw the proto-metal, seventies hardrock and eighties metal in all its glory; it made me flutter like a butterfly… On Number 16:

Ritual King – Ritual King

Butterfly – Doorways of Time

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Number 16

Number 16

After Beastwars on Number 17 we jump 35 points to reach three bands on Number 16! Indeed, all you freaks sending in their list managed to get no less than three bands the exact same amount of points on Number 16. Let’s start with the one that made Madman Tony Maim come out of nowhere like a sixties beat freak: “This album is one great big dose of lip-smacking, booze-guzzling, feedback-shaking, riff-making, occult-worshiping, coke-snorting, drum-pounding, sleaze-walking, retro-loving, fist-pumping, head-banging, heavy-making, groove-strutting, wah-wah working, trance-inducing, snake-licking, bass-thumping brilliance.” It came out of nowhere for me and after it also made the Number One of the Doom Charts that month we knew it was something special! And it is! What a release through Stoner Witch Records! Death blues with a doom groove, and so gritty it might have been found on a landfill somewhere. Second up is that Kyuss vibe, that Fu Manchu soul, that very Californian, that surf, skate or die take on stoner; but in this case from Down Under. Excellent album for every hot car ride, for every track through the desert and for every sweaty moment. Atavistic and pure stoner this will be a go to record for every sun blistered day! Last but not least from these three is a band that references the sun in their bandname. Which means we are in for something equally legendary right? And it is. Once again there is some glimmer of the ones that started it all, stoner, desert and some old grungy vibes but all of that condensed into something highly their own and divine fuzz. And those interludes, man! Out on Fuzzorama Records, new dimensions await and all of it is dense and massive! Yes, go check out all three of the bands we find on Number 16 !

The Black Furs – Stereophonic Freakout Vol. 1

Duneeater – No Gas No Good

Valley Of The Sun – Old Gods

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Number 16

 Number 16

We grooved and moved to 1968’s album Ballads Of The Godless on Number 17 and now we move on to do something much more heavy and metal on Number 16. An album that soared high on the Doom Charts and to which Bucky Brown stated: “ The album cements the band as its own distinguished brand of stoner meets heavy metal, especially within the Ripple catalog. Reinforced with indestructible Slayer-esque guitar tones, the three-piece lower a bridge of fuzzy hooks crossing a diabolic moat of molten metal.” Which means we had to put it on repeat ofcourse! And we did, and heard the lofty walls that girdled it in. This wall has gates of heavy metal. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces of riffs and massy hammers pounded intense rhythms and welded the bolts by the bassist that also brings forth the soaring, haunting, female vocals… On Number 16 we find!

Castle – Deal Thy Fate