Tag: doom
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Helhorse – self-titled
Because in Denmark, it’s H-E-single-hockey-stick. This Copenhagen-based sextet includes two guitars and two singers, one of whom also plays the piano, apparently. But these are no sons of northern darkness—Helhorse‘s sound is more akin to the southern grooves of Down, Crowbar and Orange Goblin. And this isn’t their debut, but rather their third album since…
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Sinistro – Semente
Sinistro is the second Portuguese outfit to hit my inbox in the past couple weeks, but they are two very different entities. Unlike Miss Lava, Sinistro is actually female-fronted, and their influences lean more heavily towards Neurosis than Kyuss. They also seem to sing in their mother tongue, judging by the song titles. Semente, their…
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Warsnake – self-titled
Back in the day, I used to be AF Analog’s biggest fan. The short-lived local sludge band was never a household name outside their own households, but in ’07/’08, they were the closest thing to Crowbar around this neck of the woods. Now a couple of those guys are in this new outfit, Warsnake, which…
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Mirrors for Psychic Warfare – self-titled
Both Scott Kelly and Sanford Parker are pretty much pioneers of post-sludge. Kelly needs no introduction from his time with Neurosis, while Parker has really established himself as a producer when not playing in Neurosis-inspired outfit Minsk. But their previous collaboration in Corrections House was far from the sludgy stuff… and so’s this one, for…
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Atala – Shaman’s Path of the Serpent
Though you might not have heard of them, this California desert trio has a pretty impressive stoner/doom pedigree. Atala‘s self-titled debut, which came out in 2014, was recorded by Scott Reeder, while this follow-up effort was engineered by Billy Anderson. They’re even booked to pay this year’s edition of Maryland Doomfest—the other MDF—so even though I…
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Graves at Sea – The Curse That Is
The first full-length from Graves at Sea isn’t just a long time coming, it’s a long time, period—eight tracks spanning 76 minutes! I guess that with just a handful of EPs and splits over the past several years, they finally got the chance to make the most of their studio time. The lineup here is…
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Lord Mantis – NTW EP
With an infusion of new blood from now-defunct Chicago outfit Indian, you might be expecting something slightly sludgier from this Midwest blackened doom troop this time around. A new sound, after all, would justify the release of this four-song EP, which clocks in at just over 24 minutes. “SIG Safer” immediately signals that Lord Mantis isn’t…
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Cult of Luna & Julie Christmas – Mariner
This collaborative effort between the Swedish Neurosis [Cult of Luna] and New York noise rocker Julie Christmas appears to be a concept album about live on the high seas—a theme perhaps not unfamiliar to ISIS, another notable (though sadly long defunct) post-sludge outfit. With five tracks spanning nearly 55 minutes, tis a rather lengthy voyage.…
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Dream Death – Dissemination
Dream Death’s 1987 debut Journey Into Mystery is one of the great lost metal classics of all time. On their debut album, this Pittsburgh outfit combined the nascent sub-genres of thrash and doom into a self-styled concoction called sludge metal—that’s right, they were the Possessed of all things tuned low and played slow. Problem is,…
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Low Flying Hawks – Kofuku
After a while as a writer you come to rely on certain PR companies and labels to deliver the goods seemingly without question. In my case Sheltered Life PR and Magnetic Eye Records fall into that category. So when K0fuku by Low Flying Hawks landed in my inbox there was no hesitation as to whether…