Wall – Brick By Brick

 

 

Wall – Brick By Brick
APF Records – 2024
Rock, Metal, Sludge, Doom
Rated: ***

Desert Storm, The Grand Mal, two of the other outfits that have ben built brick by brick by brothers Ryan and Elliot Cole. And Wall, that’s the project they started during that weird pandemic period a while ago. Remember that? Wall, it’s the two brothers making whatever racket they want and doing that all in the sludge and doom regions. Well, they do get help by some additional noise / guitar / mellotron on three tracks, Falling from The Edge of Nowhere, Cirrhosis, Filthy Doner Kebab on a Gut Full of Lager by Jimmy Hetherington. And on one of the two covers, they get vocals done by Dave Oglesby from Mother Corona. Two covers indeed, Nineteen by Karma To Burn and Electric Funeral by Sabbath. Both were of course present on the first two EP’s, which are collected now, as a finished structured called Brick By Brick. Which would have featured ten song if it has just been the two EP’s. But the brothers added three new tracks, the earlier mentioned Cirrhosis and Filthy Kebab On A Gut Full Of Lager. But also Masking My Contempt. A two and half minute puncher that starts off with a snippet from the American Beauty movie. Damn cool if ya ask me. And you can ready what Kyle SB wrote about their earlier EP’s here: WALL / WALL VOL.2. Nice of the brothers to have built this little castle of sludge and doom, in their very own heavy and august taste.  

(Written by JK)

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Desert Storm – Death Rattle

 

 

Desert Storm – Death Rattle
APF Records – 2023
Metal, Stoner, Sludge, Prog
Rated: ****

We’ve been mentioning Desert Storm ever since Forked Tongues and even going back to their debut and we reckon we mentioned most of their releases. We might even have mentioned most of everything that has something to do with the Cole brothers who are of course an integral part of the Desert Storm heaviness. You know, what them two did with Wall and The Grand Mal. But today we are jotting down some words about Death Rattle, their seventh album in fifteen years of Desert Storm. Fifteen years and they’ve taken their progressive sludge all over the world, and all over the place. Moving into more stoner territories for some tracks and more metal with black touches on others. Death Rattle, as the ominous title already alludes to, has overtones of the heavier and darker territories and only lighter touches and songs as the album starts. Master On None, uses some doom touches and stoner riffing, soloing and trucking to get its message across, with both gritty as well as melodic vocals. Second track Cheyne Stoking might be the most progressive ditty on the album, with the cleanest vocals and airiest compositions. There’s in fact a whole lot of space in between it all, giving it all something solemn and mysterious. With the following Bad Trip all the cogwheels fall into place and relentlessly grind the sludge metal riffs into the most concentrated mothersludging heaviness you can get. And then to think it starts out so melodic, with that guitar slowly creeping its gritty back alley essence into your own personal Cul de Sac. The raw guttural vocals quickly dispensing any hope of some good, indeed, Bad Trip. An ode to a friend they lost some ten years ago. After which they keep upping the amount of darkness they use to color the Death Rattle tracks. Druids Heath, still holding a sludgy prog touch, turns black and bleak quickly, only offering some form of respite of something delicate guitar work in the middle circle part, which still remains somewhat somber and with the smoked dark brown vocals, it never fully lets you recover from all the pressure the albums has been building. And that’s what Death Rattle in the end turns out to be, this majestic pressure cooker of riffs and furious drum work, that just builds and builds, only ever so often offering escape for a tiny bit of air, until that final ending, outro kind of track New Dawn. Which after so much tension and gravity, might actually give you goosebumps and will surely a wonderous feeling of elation, as if you have escaped the darkness and have found a way to carry on…

(Written by JK)

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Kyle SB / Shastabeast’s – Personal Top 20

 

 

Kyle SB / Shastabeast’s – Personal Top 20

 

We had hoped to post Kyle SB / Shastabeast’s - Personal Top 20 yesterday, on January 6… Why you ask? Cause it was his birthday! We congratulated him yesterday, but do so again today! Congratulations Kyle SB! The very best of wishes for the upcoming year and may it be a brilliant one. And we also congratulate him with his personal Top 20 today. And indeed, Kyle SB is also part of the Doom Charts, and he runs the Instagram page of the Doom Charts. And his Personal list will of course also appear on the Doom Charts, but then with little blurbs for each and every entry. But we’re posting it here as just the list. Just because we like to keep things nice and tidy; and up with the tradition…

 

 

20. Foothills - Ingress

19. Grief Circle - Weightless

18. Woorms- Fatalismo

17. Bones -Vomit

16. Greenbeard - Variant

15. Mammoth Volume - The Cursed Who Perform The Larvagod Rites

14. The Grand Mal - The Grand Mal II

13. C.Ross- Skull Creator

12. Howard- Event Horizon

11. The Gray Goo - 1943

10. Black Lung - Waves

9. Samavayo- Payan

8. Sky Pig- It Thrives In Darkness

7. UWUW -S/T

6. Kurokuma- Born of Obsidian

5. Gondhawa- Mäanthagorī 

4. Perennial - In The Midnight Hour

3. The Swell Fellas - Novaturia

2. -(16)- -Into Dust

1. Druids -Shadow Work

The Grand Mal - The Grand Mal II

 

 

The Grand Mal - The Grand Mal II
APF Records - November 2022
Stoner, hard rock, grunge
Rated: *****

The follow up to Oxford rockers The Grand Mal's 2019 debut is, without exaggeration, my most anticipated album of the past couple years, and "The Grand Mall II" does not disappoint. Building off their rock-solid, blues and stoner informed belter of a first record, the Oxford lads' sophomore effort retains their hard-hitting energy while further refining and tweaking the sound with new wrinkles and somehow even more swagger. The songs ooze with attitude, in large part thanks to the one-of-a-kind vocal performance of singer Dave-O, whose sneering high notes are reminiscent of Ozzy, but with a punk edge that offers an extra bite. An added nuance is his use of hushed tones in between clean croons and all-out belting, an approach that ratchets up the anticipation for the next big riff when contrasted with the bombshell drumming and churning guitar (see "Shallow" for a prime example). And hot damn, those riffs. Lee Cressey and Ryan Cole serve them up blistering hot, stomping out barnstormers like the adrenaline-fueled "Petit Mal" and winding through infectious grooves a la Clutch in "Seas of Glory". Not to mention possibly the heaviest cut on the album, "Hellbound Blues", an unrelenting facemelter that grinds and pushes, only taking a breath for a funky, bluesy chorus before diving back in. As much as it's a guitar-driven rock album, of course "II" owes much of its heft and inexhaustible energy to the rhythm section of drummer (and Cole twin) Elliot and bassist Rob Glen. From the clattering madcap percussion of "Petit Mal" to the authoritative and crisp work on "Seas of Glory", the drums make themselves known with volume and force, driving each track forward like a battering ram while the slabs of bass lay down sinister groove after groove and hold up the band's wall of sound without breaking a sweat. Not satisfied with just cranking out A-one heavy, though, The Grand Mal sprinkle in shorter cuts and interludes throughout "II", creating beautiful transitions between rockers with the bright and shimmering instrumental "The Lingering" and the spacey, grandiose "Empire of Vultures", which leads into the Led Zeppelin acoustic epic "Bloodmoon" to close out the album with class. The Grand Mal's sophomore work is confident, experimental in all the right places, and groovy as can be. This is how heavy modern rock is done, people.

(Written by Kyle SB / Shastabeast)

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

 

 

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

Elder
Speedmobile
Near Dusk
Thammuz
Red Mess
LáGoon
Psychonaut
The Grand Mal
16
The Otolith

Wall - Wall

 

 

Wall - Wall
APF Records - January 2021
Sludge, doom
Rated: ****

At this point, it's just a fact that the Cole twins are a prized possession of the UK heavy scene. First the long running standard-bearers Desert Storm, then the undeniable groove of 2019's The Grand Mal, and now yet another gift of heavy is granted in the form of Wall. A product of quarantine, the Coles' creative juices never stopped flowing, and they emerged as an instrumental duo laying down pummeling sludge and doom as only they can. The self-titled debut EP has all the best parts of the Cole sound, from the razor sharp, angular riffing to the sledgehammer drums, combined into a dark and relentless five tracks. Opener "Wrath of the Serpent" stomps forward with lumbering doom, each blast of distortion echoed by equally thunderous drums. The low and slow eventually takes a turn, shifting gears to a swirling, thrashy onslaught reminiscent of High on Fire, accompanied by lightning fast fills to dizzying effect. The trade-off between plod and adrenaline continues throughout the EP, and is showcased again in the seamless transitions between the somber noise and winding stoner guitars of "Sonic Mass". "Obsidian" brings the slogging doom in an unstoppable march of drums and grumbling bass, while "Legion" chugs forward before diving into an avalanche of tumbling riffs. To top it all off is the closing cover of Sabbath's "Electric Funeral", a devoted rendition with Dave-O, of The Grand Mal and Mother Corona, doing Ozzy justice with his top notch sneer. The heavy underground has been blessed with another creation from the Coles, and Wall's bludgeoning power will leave battered ears asking for more.

(Written by Shasta Beast)

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Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened To Albums Last Month…

Stoner HiVe’s

Top 10 Most Listened To Albums Last Month…

Doomed & Stoned In England

Torche – Admission
The Ivory Elephant – Stoneface
Ben Caplan – Old Stock
El Supremo – Clarity Through Distortion
Lightning Born – Lightning Born
ZED – Volume
Roadsaw – Tinnitus The Night
Heavy Velvet – Session
The Grand Mal – The Grand Mal

A week late… Of course… And actually, we haven’t been posting them a lot recently, those Most Listened to lists… But it’s been a busy couple of months… There’s a holiday coming up soon… After which we shall hope to become a bit more regular again… And, this time we’re are posting the most listened to Albums… Not artists… Otherwise that gigantic Doomed & Stoned In England compilation, curated by Reek of STOOM, would not have been on the list…