“Ever since Huck N Roll tragically jumped his mountain bike into a combine harvester, I’ve been missing my buddy dearly. Out of everyone among the AMG staff, his taste and mine aligned the most, especially around prog, psychedelic and stoner. So it’s only right for me to carry on his legacy and dive into the new Fire Down Below.” Stone the surf.
“The departed Huck N’ Roll, who has not been reduced to a nutritious paste designed to keeps n00bs clinging to life, loved up on Domkraft’s 2021 release Seeds. Huck considered the third album by these Swedes to be the best stoner/psych doom album of that year. The readership shared his enthusiasm to a point, while also noting that the effort felt like psychedelia as played by those who eschew psychedelics. I agreed with both camps; Seeds is a fun listen, but it does occasionally seem like the work of three talented members of the school orchestra who drank some punch spiked with liquid acid at the prom.” You put the seeds in the bongonut.
“’Twas two weeks and change before Christmas, 2018, when I went to see Madder Mortem. The venue turned out to be one of those backrooms behind a cafe, the kind regularly rented for family gatherings and bat mitzvahs and stuff, complete with random sad disco ball. There were 5 bands in total, and the whole thing lasted for 5 goddamn hours because of half-hour breaks. It was a weird and exhausting afternoon into night, and the only good thing until the main act hit the stage was a largely unknown troupe called ¡Pendejo!, who blew me away with a unique brand of brass-infused, Spanish-sung stoner metal.” Latin heat in the street.
“Finland’s Craneium managed to accrue some low-level buzz on the strength of two albums of entertainingly fuzzy, buzzy pysch/stoner rock mixed with minor sludge and alt-rock influences. While their sound is sure to remind you of other bigger acts like Monster Magnet and Sahg, they’ve managed to do their own thing and create some interesting material with a unique spin. Now comes third album Unknown Heights, which after nearly three years of effort the band thinks is their best product thus far.” Trip to the brain stone.
“Sometimes a band name conjures a very specific image or reference before you know a single other thing about it. In the case of Portland, Oregon’s Robots of the Ancient World my mind went immediately to the slightly plump and rather ungainly automata portrayed in the distinctly average film, Hellboy II: The Golden Army. That apparently invincible army was sent to devastate humanity in payment for various slights our race committed against elves and the like. Scroll over to reality and another thing apparently sent to devastate humanity, Covid-19, was playing havoc with Robots of the Ancient World, almost ending their sophomore effort, Mystic Goddess, before it properly got off the ground. The five-piece entered the studio to record the follow up to their 2019 debut, Cosmic Riders, only for producer Jack Endino to fall ill, “wrecked from this weird flu from hell,” as Robots guitarist Justin Laubscher puts it.” Infected bongs and olde bots.
“This album cover might be enough to scare away the more discerning fans, but we here aren’t paid to run away in fear or confusion. Nor are we paid enough to afford a pair of 3D glasses, which might be handy to see this artwork in its intended form. It is a messed-up, psychedelic trip of an image, to be sure, and in some ways it foreshadows what is to come on Seeds, the third album from Swedish doom/sludge/psych trio Domkraft.” Seedy fuzz.
“Heavy metal. Rock n’ roll. Attitude. Swagger. These are all good things, and if you can blend them together just right, they can create a great thing. Brazilian upstarts, Guardian of Lightning call their style of music “thunder metal” and they employ a lead bass in lieu of the traditional lead guitar as a kind of secret weapon. On their Cosmos Tree debut, this beefy threesome openly threatens you with a good time, taking a stoner metal style with plenty of attitude and making it as weighty and burly as possible.” Good wood.
“Sometimes, vocals — however good they may be — detract, or at least distract, from really listening to the moods the music is conjuring. This is how I feel about, for example, the instrumental records that accompany releases from The Ocean — while I typically listen to the full version, every now and again I will put on the instrumental version and float away. While West Virginia’s Seven Planets are a very different beast from that Berlin-based collective, their brand of instrumental rock, rooted in blues and groove, also aims to carry you away.” Seven paths to Uranus.
“Woodhawk’s debut, 2017’s Beyond the Sun, slipped by all of us, but thanks to some friends who I can reliably state are stoner rock aficionados, that album ended up in my collection. If I had reviewed it here, it would have received a healthy 3.5, as it was loaded with catchy, energetic, desert rock songs, and I simply love Turner Midzain’s voice. For Violent Nature, the band reconvened in Vancouver to record once again with Jesse Gander (Anciients), a relationship that clearly pays rich dividends.” Canadian deserts, man.
“Many years ago now, I caught a gig by a personal favorite, The Mars Volta. They had just released Frances the Mute and were touring in support of that great record. Sadly, this ranks as among the worst gigs as I’ve ever been to. The band themselves appeared to be off their faces and played only one discernible song over an hour into the jam session, at which point I left. I have similar feelings about For the Masses.” Fit for mass consumption?
