“We’re up to our ears in stoner rock and stoner doom most months. There’s an unusual quantity of it cascading through the AMG sluice and pouring to the promo cesspool. We can’t cover it all, but we try to dent the stone. Greek stoner doom crew Acid Mammoth are part of the endless tide, with Under Acid Hoof being their second platter of fuzzy, bong-friendly madness.” Feel the tusk.
![Howling Giant – The Space Between Worlds [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Howling_Giant-The_Space_Between_Worlds-768x768.jpg)
“A true sleeper hit in every sense of the word, The Space Between Worlds’ style may not be the most innovative, but damn is it tasty. Introducing themselves with three tauntingly brief EP’s since 2015, including the hella fun two-part Black Hole Space Wizard arc, Nashville trio Howling Giant fuses the fuzz of stoner doom with the ambition of prog rock.” Between rock and a vast space.
“It’s been quite a long time since I thought about ‘Portlandia,’ the I-have-to-assume wholly accurate depiction of life in Portland, Oregon. But reading the promo material for GoatHawkBuffalo’s full-length debut, I was put in mind of the particularly curious ‘We can pickle that’ sketch. Not because GoatHawkBuffalo are from Portland – the five-piece is based in Copenhagen, Denmark – but because of this statement from guitarist Asger Abel Sørensen, talking about how the band live-recorded Come to Temple but “subsequently recorded various crazy overdubs – we’ve had microphones in empty Jack Daniels’ bottles and buckets of water, we also ran a guitar signal through a pickle …”” Brine and brawn.
“When I saw the name Saint Karloff bobbing in the promo cesspool, I was intrigued. Growing up with Saturday morning horror movies in the 70s and 80s, Boris Karloff was like my unauthorized babysitter and creepy uncle, so I felt compelled to hear the band that dared to hijack his name. Upon closer inspection I learned this Norwegian psychedelic occult/stoner act’s sophomore outing, coming hot on the heels of a 2018 debut, is one 40:23 minute song. I was dismayed by this, and immediately considered weaponizing it and dropping it on some unsuspecting staffer like a concrete piano from a fourth floor window. Then I pressed play.” Do that voodoo, that you doo doo, so well.
“Is there such a thing as a universal archetype of a genre? A band that perfectly embodies everything you expect from, say, melodic death metal or power metal, and nothing else? After all, many bands mix in at least some influence from other genres in an attempt to keep things fresh and not everyone has the exact same view of what such a default state should look like. Stoner metal, on the other hand, often seems bent on conforming to a template, perhaps more so than any other of metal’s subgenres. All you need is a bunch of catchy, straightforward riffs, generally played at mid-pace, with a good measure of fuzz and with a dusting of psychedelic interludes and solos, and clean, ’70s style vocals on top, and you got yourself a stoner metal album.” Desert rock for dessert.
“V, a doomy post-metal band from Sweden, released their first album Pathogenisis in 2017 and are back this year with a six-track concept album. Inspired by a short story concerning the departure from the hustle and bustle of civilization into the wild and remote Finnmark in Dalecarlia, Sweden, Led into Exile chronicles a story of the hardships of living in Finnmark, a will to be secluded from the rest of the world’s insanity, and the ultimate disappearance of one who surrendered to the siren song drifting from the taiga-belt.” Lost in the woods.
“Sometimes a record takes a while to grow on you. Sometimes it takes a few listens to really get what a band is going for, or what makes them different from dozens of other bands. On the other hand, sometimes you press play and the band’s selling point imprints itself on your eardrums almost immediately. Dead Feathers sound like a better Dead Meadow fronted by Florence Welch (as in, the one with The Machine), and I don’t make that comparison lightly.” Dead Feathers and the Machine.
“I love imagining new music genres. What if somebody made blackened thrash with cleanly sung choruses? What if somebody made war metal with melodic death metal riffs? What if somebody made music like The Acacia Strain that was actually good? California’s Here Lies Man asked their own version of this question: what if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat?” World music downfall.
“The AMG promo sump is stuffed to the rafters with glowing PR spin about how this band redefines genre X and that band takes sub-genre Y into realms hitherto unheard. Most of it is utter crap and as accurate as your average public access channel psychic reading. Not so with the debut full-length by U.K.’s Gorilla however, who describe their sound as “F*ck the safety net heavy rock n’ roll.”” Ape cake for all.
“It’s not easy to stand apart these days, especially when it comes to stoner metal. You can change up vocal styles as much as humanly possible, throw as many outside musical influences that your songs can handle, and go off the deep end lyrically to the point of needing either a severe dry-out period or even a full-on intervention from friends, family, and various loved ones. The fact remains that stoner metal, when you take a good, hard look at it, hasn’t evolved much, and it’s getting harder and harder to do something new. Which is fine, because we kinda like it like that.” Stones don’t evolve.
