“High Fighter’s debut album Scars & Crosses was a largely laidback affair, according to a cursory listen from yours truly, featuring groovy stoner metal, played at a mid tempo, with its most distinguishing feature being vocalist Mona Miluski and her sardonic vocal style. Well, clearly High Fighter are coming down from their high and focusing on the fighter, because Champain is anything but laid back. The Germans are ready to get angry.” And that always goes so well for everyone.
“I used to dislike female vocalists in general. As I’d mostly been exposed to them through either shitty pop music or shitty Nightwishcore, I simply never felt any emotional connection regardless of their technical skill. The turnaround came from outside of metal with Florence + The Machine, and since then I’ve found a new appreciation for womanly voices, particularly in male-dominated sub-genres, with bands like Madder Mortem and Messa featuring high on my Best Ever lists. Burning Gloom (formerly named My House On Trees) are a doom-sludge band from Milan, and they have female vocals as well, something that may be rarer in sludge than in any other sub-genre sans perhaps thrash.” Women to the front!
“2019 hasn’t given me all the doom goodies I’ve been craving thus far, and that makes me a churlish Steel. Since I tend to take it out on the AMG staff, this becomes a lose lose situation for all involved. This led me to hope Texas doom mongers Destroyer of Light might alleviate my essential doom deficiency with their third album, Mors Aeterna. I wasn’t familiar with their past works, but the promo one-sheet caught my attention by namedropping Sleep, Electric Wizard and Mercyful Fate. Well, Mors Aeterna is definitely doom, but it’s more in the ancestral line of Candlemass and Black Sabbath than any of those promo PR teasers.” Doom for all.
“During the Great N00b Off, I told myself that, should I one day be given unchaperoned access to the promo bin, I absolutely would not choose a band purely on the basis of its name. I would do my research and make an informed decision. So, following my first foray into the promo bin sans Steel Druhm, take a bow John, the Void, a band I chose purely for its name.” What’s in a name?
“Gothenburg three-piece Earth Messiah are also going old school with their full-length debut Ouroboros. The Swedes’ downtuned, heavy stoner-rock sound is ripped straight out of the late 1990s and follows on from a solid two-track demo, Nocturnal Thoughtgrinder, which they put out in January 2018. A full cycle of the seasons (and a record deal with Argonauta Records) later, are Earth Messiah reborn or stuck living in the past?” Stones and time.
“I’m gonna go ahead and say it: making good music is hella difficult. Us reviewers have it easy; the only skill our trade requires is writing good. But an album has so many steps where it can falter and bring down the entire Jenga tower. The musicians have to be able to play their instruments reasonably well. If they have a vocalist it’s double the trouble, judging by how many albums are tripped up by the vocals. Songwriting is a balancing exercise in and of itself; riffs, bridges, structure, all without sounding too derivative and trying for some originality. Then when you finally have everything put together, you have the recording and producing process, and it may still fall into traps of sounding lifeless or generic. It’s a miracle any good albums are produced at all!” Me write good some day.
“The most widely known motto by the late legendary movie reviewer Roger Ebert is probably “It’s not about what [it’s] about, it’s how it’s about it.” It’s an elegant way to say that a self-effacing B-movie may be just as (or more) successful as a grandiose historical epic at doing what it set out to do. Similarly, metal albums can be intended as highfalutin, genre-defining epics and fail miserably, or be highly entertaining and successful at simple and straightforward goals. The curiously named Floridian outfit Hollow Leg is among the latter category.” Head up, leg empty.
“I don’t do well in the heat. This n00b is a strictly cold-weather creature. Despite this, I do very much enjoy stoner-desert rock. I’ve done so ever since I first encountered Kyuss’ seminal Welcome to Sky Valley. So imagine my excitement when the promo bin – manifesting in the ominous shape of Steel Druhm – threw me Blue Skies Back to Gray, the debut album from Italian stoners Sons of Lazareth.” Left to die.
“Ladies and gentleman, today is a milestone. Since joining AMG, I have reviewed everything from stoner to Gothic, thrash to black and back. I’ve dabbled in death metal, slithered through sludge and appraised the avant-garde. But the one genre I never picked up was post-black. My experience with the style starts at A and ends at lcest, and even with them I haven’t paid much attention since Eçailles des Lunes. The genre simply had little allure to me, even though I do enjoy some post-other type of bands, and I figured other writers would be better suited to place those records in the proper context. But as I still enjoy spinning the promo roulette, the little silver ball had to bounce to post-black one day.” Always bet on post-black.
“A Voluntary Lack of Wisdom is smothered in a dense layer of fuzz. But not the delicious tickle of a soft blanket, this is a bed of post-doom fiberglass. Italian three-piece metallers Loimann release this—their third full length—touting it as being more in your face and featuring less complex songwriting than prior efforts. Formed in 2001, it seems a change of direction was in order for this album. Keyboards have been dropped altogether and the harsh vocal quotient has been increased in an effort to provide a more extreme overall result.” Fiberglass-core.
