Babylon Tree - Habim

 

 

Babylon Tree - Habim 
Self-released – 2026
Instrumental, Rock, Psych, Desert, Eastern
Rated: ****

I remembered the Eastern Tales album from 2019. The progressive and psychedelic nature of the compositions weaving itself around all those worldly and Eastern influences had fairytale qualities. It made you see the caravans, the dust storms and the oasis. And now, after seven years, and many different members, the Athens based outfit Babylon Tree is back with a new release called Habim! 

Two instrumental beauties cover the Habim sides, both lasting around ten minutes and both again in the vein of Eastern tinged psychedelic rock. But warmer to the touch and more finely produced. Still retaining all of those storytelling properties. Somewhere between a desert mirage and a midnight trek along the moonlit city walls, Babylon Tree emerges, carrying dust covered riffs, hypnotic grooves and melodies that have that ancient and wise feel. Habim unfolds like a journey through the forgotten alleyways from some grand Middle Eastern city, and the burning dunes outside. Where fuzzy guitars can echo against the city walls or drift off towards the endless horizon. A track like Liquid Garden drifts and pulses with a mantra like energy, pulling the listener ever deeper into a world where the heavy side of desert rock whisps around all that psychedelic mysticism. 

The sound seems ingrained with a jam like quality, as if everything came naturally, shaping the sound organically and letting each composition breathe, evolve and reach its full potential. The Oriental melodies, enriched by female vocals that seem to drift like the wind itself, only get crushed by a riff once or twice, creating moments that feel entirely meditative, until that explosive instance. It is without any doubt inspired by seventies progressive rock and psychedelia, the raw pulse of desert rock and the love of a story… For if you take Habim with you, then Habim will take you into a dreamlike landscape where heaviness, atmosphere and storytelling flow completely naturally and become one… 

(Written by JK)

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Hypnosaur – Afterlife

 

 

Hypnosaur – Afterlife
Self-released – 2026 
Rock, Metal, Pop, Stoner,
Rated: ****

Before you can prepare yourself, Afterlife bursts open like the soundtrack to a forbidden eighties horror film, overtures, big choruses and all, discovered in a dusty video store basement and ready to let loose on everything you ever wanted. It’s the new Hypnosaur, dragging you with them, into the Afterlife! 

Hypnosaur continues to prove they are one of the most exciting and unpredictable modern rock bands around. Ever since their explosive 2022 album Doomsday, the Warsaw-based quartet has blended the theatrical grandeur of classic eighties rock and metal with infectious hooks, psychedelic textures, stoner rock energy, and a healthy dose of humor. It immediately established the band’s identity with massive choruses, dramatic orchestration, and clear influences from Ghost and thus ABBA and Blue Öyster Cult… 

The 2024 four track Undead Invaders Born To Die In A Maze pushed their formula further, embracing darker synths, gothic atmospheres, eighties inspired keyboards and irresistible melodies. Even transforming synth-pop nostalgia into a stonerized dance-rock anthem on “Inwazja z Plutona” … Yes, Hypnosaur kept combining musicianship, theatrical flair, humor, and retro influences into a wildly entertaining and uniquely addictive rock experience.

And now there’s a new full length called Afterlife. On which they move back more towards Doomsday and their Ghost reminiscent sound. But where Ghost takes themselves so seriously you cannot help but laugh, it works the other way around with Hypnosaur. They do not take themselves serious at all, try to have as much fun as possible, and in doing so, you start take them serious and even hear the message that they sneak in here and there… 

Afterlife feels like the moment Hypnosaur fully embraces everything that made their earlier work so exciting in the first place. Ever since the towering hooks and theatrical swagger of Doomsday first introduced listeners to their strange and irresistible world, the Warsaw quartet has balanced stoner rock grit, eighties glam excess, gothic atmosphere and infectious melody with remarkable ease. But on Afterlife, those elements are sharper, darker, catchier and so much more confident than ever before.

Just listen to incredibly catchy opener and title track Afterlife and then hear it transition into the fireball that is Lieflower. The slow build that happens, and continues with Reality-141 and Look At The Balls. Which continues the highly melodic rock 'n roll structure, ups the dynamic, antsiness and power with every track that passes and gets you all ready for the two minute long DMT ride that is Danger. The most metal and punk track on the album perhaps. 

Sure, the shadow of Ghost once again looms, but proudly, over the record, especially in the massive choruses, eerie keyboard arrangements and dramatic vocal delivery, yet Hypnosaur never sounds like imitation. Instead, they channel the same love for seventies and eighties hard rock, AOR and occult theatricality into something unmistakably their own. Every track feels built for maximum impact: gigantic refrains, shimmering guitar flourishes, pounding drums and haunting synths collide in a kaleidoscopic storm of melody and darkness. But darkness on the light side of town... 

Hardwired for instance scales back on energy, but not on intensity, and implores some of that hallowed sound to make it sound huge and again sporting that incredibly earwurm quality. Humming this everywhere you go is not just an option, it's a given. Longest track on the record, Alone, once again opts for an eighties atmopshere, with its synth work, but goes more nineties once the bass gets to do its thing and then as we near the halfway mark, we are suddenly treated to more grunted and growled vocals. Another side of the Hypnosaur! 

What makes Afterlife work so well is how effortlessly Hypnosaur balances all that fun and those eighties atmospheres. The album is energetic, stylish and playful, but underneath the hooks lurks something genuinely hypnotic. It is retro rock worship transformed into a vibrant, modern and wildly addictive experience. One moment the band sounds like a glam metal gang speeding through neon-lit streets at midnight, the next they become psychedelic storytellers conjuring dark dreams beneath disco lights and almost operatic thunderclouds. Hypnosaur proves once again, they can do it all!

And we’re honored, to announce, that we’ll do the FULL ALBUM PREMIERE for Hypnosaur’s Afterlife together with the Polish Noise Magazine this Monday! So, check in, tomorrow, on May 25th to hear Afterlife a day early! 

(Written by JK)

And you can listen to the two singles right now! 

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Hypnosaur – Undead Invaders Born To Die In A Maze

Hypnosaur - Inwazja z Plutona

Hypnosaur – Doomsday

 

Robot God – Onto The Afterlife

 

Robot God – Onto The Afterlife
Kozmik Artifactz / Black Throne Productions – 2026
Rock, Stoner, Psych, Metal 
Rated: ****

I often feel like we’re not doing enough on Stoner HiVe. But I fear we never can, cause there is so much and so much great stuff. I mean, we mentioned the 2022 Worlds Collide album and the Portal Within record from 2024. But before those there were two others and after those two more before this very new Robot God album was released. It’s called Onto The Afterlife and might just be their best to date… Yes… Robot God delivered again! And will do so again and again and even later this year with another album called Curse Of The Driven… 

On Onto The Afterlife, Robot God pushes their desert bound cosmic sound into darker and perhaps more emotionally volatile territory. The Sydney three still build their music around sprawling heavy psychedelic journeys, towering groove-laden riffs and vast space rock adjacent atmospheres. But the new album carries with is a dirtier and more confrontational edge. Beneath the hypnotic flow, lies a strain of grime-coated heaviness that feels drawn from doom, sludge, grunge and diesel blues. It gives the record an extra intense edge, a raw physical weight without sacrificing any of its sense of scale. 

It’s their ability to balance meditative drift with crushing momentum, moving from slow burning low end hypnosis to explosive climaxes filled with scorched guitar leads, layered effects and trance like repetition that keeps pulling you further in Onto The Afterlife. Say that three times fast. Vocals weave through the haze, they can feel haunted, sometimes introspective, sometimes urgent and always adding emotional gravity to the album’s expansive sound. 

Ambient textures and shadowy instrumental passages all broaden the experience further. And it all leads to the conclusion that these five tracks, these forty-one minutes aren’t just a collection of songs, but part of one long single immersive descent. Onto The Afterlife is an album that wants to define the Robot God sound. A sound that went out to explore what lies beyond, and came back carrying fragments of something vast, wild and beautiful. And there is more… More to explore and more to share… For that is… The Curse Of The Driven… 

(Written by JK)

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Robot God – Portal Within

Robot God – Worlds Collide

 

 

 

Gnod – Chronicles Of Gnowt (Vol 1)

 

 

Gnod – Chronicles Of Gnowt (Vol 1)
Rocket Recordings - 2026
Alternative, Psychedelic Rock, (Heavy) Psych
Rated: 

Gnod, those chameleons from Salford that don’t give a fuck about expectations and do whatever they want with ‘total’ and ‘freedom’ being the key words when it comes down to making music, almost casually present their new album ‘Chronicles of Gnowt (Vol 1)‘. Like one would expect, it’s completely different from what they’ve done before and starts with a beautiful, short instrumental in which acoustic guitar is the focal point. There’s another five and a half minute interlude midway through that follows the same pattern, but this is mainly sixties-based psychedelic rock with acid-tinged kraut soundscapes and a production that seems to come straight from said period, but feels contemporary at the same time. With its natural flow, ‘Chronicles of Gnowt (Vol 1)‘ seems like a story unfolding before your eyes. A fantastic album that’ll make you eager to hear volumes 2 and 3, as this is the first instalment of a trilogy.

(Written by Ronny Dijksterhuis)

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Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell – The Trouble With The Shovell

 

 

Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell – The Trouble With The Shovell
Rise Above Records – 2026 
Heavy Psych, Classic Rock, Stoner
Rated: 

Yes baby, The Shovell is back!!!, doing what they do best: producing a raunchy, frantic fireball of sound that takes its influences from heavy psych, classic rock and a bit of stoner. ‘Trouble with the Shovell‘ is not as overwhelming as their first two albums (a case of getting used to what they do?), but it’s hanging in the slipstream and therefore alone Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell confirm their status as one of the best bands in the heavy psych scene and makes you quickly forget this is their first new LP in almost seven years. Like they’ve never been away in the first place.

(Written by Ronny Dijksterhuis)

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Stump Grinder – Forest Metal

 

Stump Grinder – Forest Metal
Self-released – 2026 
Hardcore, Sludge, Stoner
Rated: 

Stump Grinder‘s new EP sounds like a deformed child that crawled from the womb of a guillotine after she made love to a room full of chainsaws and battle riffles. Four aggressive, furious bouts of scream-infused hardcore, sludge and stoner that’s more gritty than a piece of sandpaper adorned with razorsblades, before ending with an eerie instrumental that seems the perfect accompaniment for a funeral service in a horror movie. In other words: the perfect pass time for that 17 minute hole one of the possible fathers just shot in your agenda.

(Written by Ronny Dijksterhuis)

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Iguana Death Cult – Guns Out

 

 

Iguana Death Cult – Guns Out
Greenway Records – 2026
Rock, Garage, Punk
Rated: ****

One of the surprises on Sonic Whip Festival was without any doubt Iguana Death Cult. I had seen them before, but they always surprise. It’s their very nature. Live. And on record. Cause no band has ever morphed, changed and transformed more than the Iguana Death Cult. And the new Guns Out album is no different! Formed in 2014, the new Guns Out record is their fourth official studio album and one that might be capturing their live sound in the most natural way. Cause yes, live Iguana Death Cult will forever be an entirely different animal. And one that cannot be tamed… 

Guns Out is not tame! It is a wiry, high-energy garage rock record packed with sharp riffs, shouted hooks and restless momentum. The album blends scrappy punk attitude with psychedelic grooves, funky guitar lines and twitchy dance-rock rhythms. Its songs race forward with nervous energy and a playful sense of irony, even while tackling themes like consumerism, war anxiety and mental overload. Though sometimes repetitive, the album thrives on raw immediacy, swagger and loud, sweaty fun.

Is it as good as the live beast? Perhaps not, but hearing the album, reliving the concert, feeling that energy and tasting the salt of your own sweat again, well… That’s the kind of animal you can keep cozying up too. When it’s cold outside, the summer is in full swing or the legendary Iggy Pop tells you they’re good! Iguana Death Cult has everything and more. Guns Out, hot and blazing! 

(Written by JK)

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Sons Of Node - Consequence of Abundance

 

 

Sons Of Node - Consequence of Abundance
Self-released – 2026
Metal, Sludge, Hardcore
Rated: ***

Perhaps, just like your tasting buds, your ears will be most receptive, sensitive and in tune in the morning. It sure feels like it, during all of those early mornings the past week all albums that we listened to sounded amazing and quenched some kind of thirst. But then Sons Of Node came along, announced that the album would be out on May 15th, and yes you guessed it! Their new Consequence of Abundance album had us hungry for more! 

Their sound, like a collapsing refinery set to music: suffocatingly heavy sludge metal dragged through stoner rock haze, noise-rock chaos and hardcore abrasion. An aggro edge and colossal bass work, combined with the triple-vocal attack shove you ever forward. Shifting between roars, barks and guttural howls like three arguments happening at once, those different styles add a lot to the Sons Of Node character. It’s a sludge-soaked demolition crew with surprisingly sharp songwriting underneath all its chaos. 

Punishing grooves erupt in violent bursts of feedback and rhythmic instability. And it all feels intense and entirely physical… A body-level sludge metal assault that will bruise the ribs and the riffs will grind you up like some phantasmal machine. Each one hitting you with industrial weight, turning the entire Consequence of Abundance album into something your taste buds will be tasting for the rest of the day. It’s something to endure, to savor, cause this is impact after impact without reprieve. (Well,except for I Awake..., a lovely atmosperhic interlude.) Sons Of Node is relentless and a force to be reckoned with! 

(Written by JK)

Listen to the first three singles now and be ready for the entire Consequence of Abundance album by Sons Of Node to drop on May 15th!  

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American Sharks – Not Dead Yet

 

 

American Sharks – Not Dead Yet
Permanent Teeth Records - 2026
Metal, Punk, Stoner
Rated:

American Sharks play dirty punk rock'n'roll. This album is like taking your first cheap chemical drug trip - frantic, full of bright lights and noise and over too quickly, leaving you wanting more. Waving the flag that Electric Frankenstein and The Hellacopters hoisted high, American Sharks are like a shot of adrenaline mainlined into the brain. Remember when music was about energy, singalong choruses, dazzling guitar breaks, sweat and passion? These guys do. One of my favourite bands used to do this - they all had the surname of Ramone! This album make me feel happy and violent at the same time - a perfect combination. With a bass sound that Lemmy would be proud of, the songs cruise along with an unstoppable drive over which the vocals are spat out. They are not trying to be the darkest or brutal or whatever the fuck this months "core" scene is supposed to be. The Sharks just wanna play fast and powerful and kick some arse on the way. This is the good shit.

(Written by Tony Maim)

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Number 20 on the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2013

Words on American Sharks – American Sharks

Tusoc – Monolito

 

 

Tusoc – Monolito
Self-released – 2026
Rock, Stoner
Rated: ****

Maybe it was erased by time or blown away... But I was sure I wrote something about their damn fine 2023 release Éter; just as I was sure the new album Monolito would rank high on the April Doom Charts. And indeed, the new Tusoc album made the published list of 40 out of more than 200 albums that received votes. But I assumed it would end up higher. I also found out I never got around to mentioning Éter… Or maybe it floated away on some strange desert wind… 

They have more and earlier releases as well, live album Vivo Desde el Éter from 2025 and Un Ciprés en Llamas from 2022. But Éter felt like a gigantic step forward and onto a road that would always combine their very own mysterious atmosphere around their drifting, floating version of stoner rock. And on Monolito they manage to do that even more, for each track seems to drift like a chapter from a book that never admits its ending, shifting from haze to eruption, from grief to firelight. 

The Tusoc four have this strange ability to create music that is entirely tangible yet feels like it might vanish as you are listening to it, leaving only minor footprints behind. The pages written with ancient soot crafted ink, remembers the dim lit room where the sounds were created. Somewhere inside a forgotten building in Rosario, Argentina, where the stone corridors sparked with electricity and the air inside remembers those old storms. The bass, the drum, they move like that ancient thunder that emptied the streets, while guitars have the keys to all those hidden doors… Sometimes they open to the riffs conjured by the desert heat outside and at other times submerged cathedrals of sound become everything you can see and feel. 

The vocals, distant and in Spanish, feel like the messages that were written on the walls that have long since crumbled, like on those monuments in ruin… Themes rise, fracture, and dissolve into atmosphere, as if the album is slowly erasing the path by which it was travelling, dusting away those footprints. Monolito by Tusoc is an album that will grab you completely and entirely and you will need to grab, with both hands, both ears and your entire heart. Otherwise it might float away on the desert wind… 

(Written by JK)

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Beacons

Black Lung – Forever Beyond

 

 

Black Lung – Forever Beyond
Magnetic Eye Records – 2026
Rock, Prog, Psych
Rated: *****

The American outfit Black Lung released their self-titled debut EP back in 2014 and followed that one up with two albums that matched that first release in quality before blowing all of that out of the water with the brilliant 2022 album Dark Waves. And since the beginning of March there’s a new addition called Forever Beyond, an album that proves to be even more beautiful than all that came before. The psychedelic rock continues to drift ever closer to the sound of All Them Witches, but where that band leans into an increasingly oppressive atmosphere, Black Lung instead expands outwards… Crafting something wide, grandiose, and filled with sweeping gestures. Even when the themes touch on fascism, blind nationalism, and the suffocating machinery of capitalist oligarchy, the music remains strangely alluring: seductive, provocative, and at times even dreamlike.

At moments, the band veers into blues-inflected passages, or even allows hints of metal to surface, but always the result is the same, an invitation to lose yourself, to smile quietly, and to drift into reverie. Added to this is the remarkable voice of vocalist Dave Cavalier, which arrives precisely when needed to deepen the emotional resonance of each passage. The result is an album that stands as one of the finest you are likely to hear this year. Thematically, it may speak to the current condition of human society, and in doing so perhaps achieves a kind of  timelessness. In any case, it all feels as though Forever Beyond has been made for eternity…

(Written by JK)

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Black Lung – Ancients 

Phantom Logic – Salton Dust

 

 

Phantom Logic – Salton Dust 
Glory or Death Records – 2026 
Rock, Psych
Rated: ****

Not to dismiss the rest of the band, cause this is some beautiful long form psych rock! But why is it that sometimes a musician comes along that has that special something, that spark, that energy, that always manages to give a song that extra edge, that extra beauty… The single Glyphwave already felt like riding a sandstorm on a broken amplifier, with no escape possible, your body constantly filled with both serenity and electrical panic. And the entire debut album Salton Dust by Phantom Logic has that vibe and truly sounds like it was dragged out of some ghostly mirage somewhere on the edge of a desert. Sun-bleached, fuzz-drenched, and beautifully unhinged in the best possible of ways. This is heavy psych rock as a desert hallucination: twin guitars slithering and colliding like heat mirages, rhythm section locked into a sand-scorched trance and everything vibrating at its very own pitch. And yes, with Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless igniting around the edges, on every of the four tracks, the record doesn’t just drift, float, or fly, it careens, slides and explodes, turning repetition into ritual and all that majestic tone into terrain. There is no room for compromise and none needed! Why would you even want to escape from all this beauty, mesmerizing chaos and grand desert sermon for tone and volume? Indeed, it would defy all logic…

(Written by JK)

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Corrosion Of Conformity – Good God / Baad Man

 

Corrosion Of Conformity – Good God / Baad Man
Nuclear Blast - 2026
Heavy Metal, Southern Rock, Sludge
Rated: ****

We love them, and when our resident poet Ronny Dijksterhuis mentioned their Gimme Some More single on a Quick Fire Friday segment, I remembered this was coming. For yes, that single heralded the coming of that amazing new Corrosion Of Conformity album Good God/Baad Man. The last album by COC, No Cross No Crown, was released in 2018. That’s quite a while ago, but a lot has changed since then. Two years after that album, drummer Reed Mullin passed away after a life marked by alcohol and drugs, and not long after that, co-founder and bassist Mike Dean decided to leave the band. That left founder, guitarist, and singer Woody Weatherman and guitarist/singer Pepper Keenan, a member since 1989, as the remaining core. But with newly recruited bassist Bobby Landgraf (ex-Down, Honky) and drummer Stanton Moore, who previously played on In The Arms Of God (2005), new energy and new fire has returned. The result is the double album Good God/Baad Man, over an hour-long journey through COC’s eclectic metal world. The first half is packed with furious metal in all the familiar COC styles, while the second half explores new paths: hard rock, blues, stoner, and even psychedelic touches. Producer Warren Riker described the album during recording as their “Dark Side Of The Doom,” a label that perfectly captures the versatility, intensity, and boldness of this powerful record…

(Written by JK)

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