Anathema - The Crestfallen / Pentacost III

Every so often I just gotta come back to early Anathema. Most often, it used to be to Serenades, but as time has gone on, I find myself revisiting this compilation rather than the debut album. Despite the engine of pure brilliance that modern Anathema has become, I do genuinely miss the old doomy Anathema. Honestly, this comp always gets looked over by me, but lets be frank here: as awesome as Serenades is, the production on both of these sessions is much more rounded and level. There is a haunting hollowness to Serenades (comparisons can be made to early My Dying Bride and even the first Cradle Of Filth album), but Crestfallen in particular is a lot dryer and clean. The songwriting is on point, the delivery flawless, and the vocals savage as fuck.

Noothgrush - Failing Early, Failing Often

Falling Early, Falling Often is a lesson in pure, unfiltered USA sludge mania. Channeling that Eyehategod school of combining time-warped Sabbath groove with downtuned desperation, Noothgrush's dirty sound shines like a revealing black light through the dry, crisp and restrained production job which dominates most of the tracks on this collection. (Why is a lot of doom produced this way, is it to cram *all* of that riff in when recorded at what I can only assume is an obscene volume?)

The icing on the cake for me is the inclusion of Star Wars themed tracks. I mean, a sludge track called fucking "Sith" is just monolithic in title alone (thankfully the sound backs it up!), and the dirged-out version of "Imperial March / Alderaan" is pure bliss for any nerdy metalhead. What I also like about this record is that the tracks don't drone on for too long, which seems to be a staple with the slower end of metal. I get it, obviously, but I won't say it isn't refreshing to encounter a slightly more brisk pace on this kind of album. More Noothgrush please! 

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

To somewhat paraphrase the legendary Devin Townsend, the sound on this album is as heavy as a really heavy thing. Like, really really heavy; a collapsing neutron star, or some such. Dopethrone is a monument in modern day doom metal; easily one of the albums that re-invigorated the scene and brought new life to the (at the time) fairly stagnant genre, all the while re-setting the benchmark for what heavy music can be. It is fascinating how something so muddy and lo-fi (for lack of a better term) can be so gargantuan.

It is hard to do listening to this album any justice. I suggest the vinyl copy, played on the most expensive sound system you can get access to, to guarantee the best experience. “Funeralopolis”, “I Hate You” and the title track are absolutely fucking huge doses of crushing doom magic, and I struggle to think of better ways to experience an hour or so of complete sonic annihilation. If you’ve somehow never heard Electric Wizard before this is without a doubt the best place to start. A stone cold classic and benchmark of the doom genre.

Satan's Satyrs - Wild Beyond Belief

Satan's Satyrs play dirty, dingy rock and roll tinged with that punk attitude that everyone loves so much (amirite?). The guitar tone here is off the chart, transporting you right to the heart of Fuzz City USA. We lose a bit of clarity in the overall production sound, which is a bit muddy, and the drums have this strange treble-heavy density to them (which is rather intruding at first but you get used to it), almost as if they are being played in another room away from you, but if anything, this just adds to the charm of the record, which is a highly enjoyable, mirky romp through witch/doobie burning excellence.

"Electric Witchwhipper" is probably my favourite track, and is just totally dripping in sleaze, making me want to dive into a swimming pool filled with 80s exploitation films (ouch!). Check it out below.

Kong Lives - Kong Saves

Kong Saves is the debut EP from new South Wales based doom metal / stoner outfit Kong Lives, featuring members of Tradish and the recently (sadly) defunct Desalvo. Kong Saves treads firmly on the ethereal yet groove-laden side of doom, rarely falling full force into the pits of sludgy despair. The trippier, more laid back parts remind me of Germany's Samsara Blues Experiment, whilst the more full-on, distorted passages are akin to The Inside Room-era 40 Watt Sun mixed with something altogether more Slabdragger (yeah fuck it I'm going with that statement haha).

Track 4 features backing vocals from Judas Cradle's very own Sam Wall, which is a nice addition to the nihilistic blast of doom. The fitting artwork was pen(cilled?) by long-time illustrator and once PUS vocalist Bvrzerk, and the amazing studio production was carried out by Newport's Rhys Bryant (who has recorded the likes of Grand Collapse and Pizza Tramp, among others). 

You can stream the whole thing at the group's Bandcamp page, so check it out below.

Phyllomedusa - Fijian Holiday

Phyllomedusa has been sneaking doom metal tracks into his (?) gory repertoire for quite some time now, but Fijian Holiday marks the point where the stark lines of contrast have blurred so much that the multitude of perplexing styles this project perpetuates have finally come crashing together into one big sticky disgusting bog of beautiful, nauseating mess. Almost sounding like slam in parts; this record crawls and grooves with absolute menace. Phyllomedusa can do no wrong in my eyes. Strongly recommended!

Hooded Menace - Fulfill The Curse

The debut of slow, gloomy death magic from snail-paced doom masters, Hooded Menace. I'm about to run out and get myself a sacrificial robe, some dry ice and a bunch of cheap red wine after hearing this sludgy masterpiece again. I feel that somehow, paraphernalia like that is fitting for listening to stuff like this. Perhaps bizarrely, I once caught Hooded Menace live at Obscene Extreme festival (of all places!) and have been dabbling in their murky cauldron every so often since then, when I'm in the mood for soul excoriation via monolithian doom, of course. 

"Beauty And The Feast" has to be my favourite track here; the way it leads with a strong bass presence is simply amazing and brutal, and the track is oft reminiscent of Disembowelment before becoming something altogether more Sabbathy in the second half. Bizarro! Speaking of being bizarre as f, there's the odd "Love Song Of Gotho, The Hunchback Of The Morgue" and a cover version of the theme for Fulci's Manhattan Baby (Eye Of The Evil Dead for UK/USA readers).

Death doom, done right.

High On Fire - Luminiferous

Luminiferous is the latest release from Sleep-y (see what I did there?) doom metal titans, High On Fire. I've always gotten a Motorhead-meets-sludge metal feel from these guys, which is just the greatest. Despite this similarity, they are also one of those bands that are instantly recognizable for having their own sound, not only from the vocals but also I find from the drumming style, which isn't overly technical but is fresh and interesting for music of this pace. One drawback with High On Fire (and with most doom metal in general, for me) is that what you see (or in this case, hear) is what you get. That statement is in no way to disrespect or criticize this album, but I don't feel that it pushes the band's sound forward in any way. With an "if it ain't broken..." attitude, Luminiferous is a serious slice of HOF-style doomery.

That isn't to say that this record doesn't have variation; "Slave To The Hive" has a fair speed to it, as does the opening moments of "The Black Plot", which has a d-beat feel to proceedings. "The Cave" has an almost progressive, Sabbath-y kind of feel to it, as does the album-closing lurcher, "The Lethal Chamber".

On a final note, the accompanying video for "The Black Plot" is amazing, check it out here:

Castle - Blacklands

Blacklands is the second album from female-fronted occult metallers, Castle (who have, quite possibly, one of the simplest yet coolest band names ever). Blacklands is more towards the rockier side of doom, rather than falling off the edge into the void of sludge. The cover art here is very striking, and I find myself drawn to it. Despite its quasi-surrealism, it is fairly simplistic, however every time I study it, I pick out little extra details that I did not notice before.

The same can pretty much be said about Castle's doomy occult rock. Throughout the catchiness of the riffs and vocals can be found nuanced little touches that really make all the difference. Female-fronted occult rock was overdone for a while, but this is definitely a stand out band in respect to that. 

Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer

Ahh, Burning Witch - what a terrifying band. Crippled Lucifer was one of those albums I got when I was younger simply because I thought the cover art was fucking mint. It therefore coincidentally opened up the drab underbelly of doom metal for me; not only was it slow, the absence of groove and most melody made it a painful first listen. I had no idea that doom could be so twisted, evil and harrowing. Granted, there are slower bands, and yes, there are heavier bands, but Burning Witch turned me onto a world that I probably wouldn't ever have touched otherwise, due to being generally consumed by endless grindcore.

Crippled Lucifer is actually a compilation record of sorts, coupling both of the band's records - Rift.Canyon.Dreams and Towers - into one package. It is responsible for bringing Burning Witch to an entire new worldwide audience, where they once wallowed in a fair amount of obscurity. Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley played the guitar here, and released this on Southern Lord.

The one thing that really puts this above a lot of other stuff in the (now very over-saturated) doom metal genre is the insane vocal performances. Straight from the off they are a combination of throat-scraping, tormented wails and puzzling sung passages.

Words can only say so much. Have a goosey.

The Body - No One Deserves Happiness

(words by Le Manifico Doomfindaaaah Jenerales)

Before anything else, can you just take a second to appreciate how amazing that artwork and album title is.... 

The Body are a two piece sludge band from somewhere in America. Well I say sludge, but they don't sound anything like Eyehategod et al, but they are slow, heavy and unpleasant, so it's close enough.

The album opens up pleasantly (if not miserably) enough with "Wanderings" which has just a simple drum beat and some nice female vocals telling you repeatedly to "go it alone" for about 2 minutes until some of the best high pitched harsh vocals join in. The second song keeps the same sort of feeling, adding layers of distorted heavy slow guitar but with the female vocals being used solely for the chorus this time. Just as you think you have the measure of the album though, "For You" pummels you into submission with a barrage of noise, drums and screams. "The Fall and the Guilt" strips back everything to pretty much just piano and lovely vocals, but with a creepy, constant crackly hum underpinning it. The last track, "The Myth Arc" manages to do this same sort of thing but better, with the vocals almost being drowned out in a sea of horrible noise. 

All in all the whole thing is just wonderful. Well, horrible. But you get the idea.

Check out the full album on The Body's official Bandcamp page:

Or if you've got Spotify... 

Conjurer - I

I asked to review this recently; jumping at the chance to do so (frankly, I'm just so happy to finally hear studio material by Conjurer). I can be quite wary of being asked to review things, or of bands that "farm out" reviews, because usually, if you have to ask for something to be written about, then it's going to be shite, but this is something incredibly special.  

Conjurer have been gigging maniacally for a while now, and I think it's safe to say this debut is hotly anticipated. We (Judas Cradle) shared a bill with these guys for our second ever gig, but we had to leave because some piece of shit power metal band were trying to fight us over broken equipment (the venue actually broke it, not us. Safe to say we never received an apology). Luckily the same tour came to my "local" a few days later, sans tubbo power metal, so I was able to actually watch these guys, and I still stand by the statement that Conjurer are the best band to have ever played that venue. Ever. They totally blew me away, and every other band off the bill (no offence intended, of course).

I is no different. 

Short version: Conjurer are fucking class. 

Long version: I simply floors the competition, and as far as decent debuts go, this is off the fucking chart. Conjurer have their own sound so it's hard to break them down into a string of dropped names to fill out a review (a staple of my writing style hahaha) but if I had to (and I will!) try and piece a picture together outta existing artists I'd say they are like some mad-scientist mix between Converge, Gojira and Neurosis, with a very Anathema-esque over-arching melodic edge; weeping guitar leads meeting crushing heaviness and droning doomery. Raspy, tortured back up vocals act as a foil to the gravel-throated roars of frontman Dan Nightingale.

Favourite track: The closing number, "Frail". All four tracks are beyond strong, but the way this brooding epic culminates never fails to rip my head off; those blasts just coming from fucking nowhere, and the riff is just perfect. It feels like all the misery and torment from every second of each tune previous to this has been building up to this final explosion. 

Listen and love! (FYI There are some awesome Conjurer t-shirt designs on the go at the moment, and this fucker just dropped on CD and vinyl thanks to Holy Roar.)

Cathedral - The Garden Of Unearthly Delights

As far as doom metal goes, Cathedral have always been one of my favourites. They were the band that introduced me to the genre in my youth, and therefore have always occupied a soft-spot in my blackened heart. Heading up to London Forum to catch the band's final show was something that will stick with me forever. The disbanded warriors of gloom have a varied and interesting back catalogue ranging from the downright heavy to the downright weird, and The Garden Of Unearthly Delights is about somewhere in the middle of that scale.

Endtyme and The VIIth Coming saw Cathedral's 90s experimental sound stripped right back to the brutal bare bones. Having once against mastered the medium of heavy in lieu of psych, The Garden Of Unearthly Delights sees the band beginning to re-approach their psychedelic tendencies through a far more clarified, less self-indulgent path. Stadium-fillers such as "The North Berwick Witch Trials" and "Corpsecycle" stand in stark comparison to the epic "Oro The Manslayer" or the 27-minute, obscenely progressive lurcher "The Garden".  

The stunning cover painting was provided, as almost always, by the incredible Dave Patchett. The classical chaos of Cathedral album sleeves always makes for an interesting staring match as their twisted doom unfolds. Man, I miss this band.

Bloodlung - Roach

Bloodlung were a sludge band from South Wales who called it a day a year or so ago. As a result, free copies of their Roach album filtered out and I got given one at band practice when Judas Cradle used to rehearse at One Louder studios in Newport. I don’t usually listen to metal stuff in the car on the way home because a.) I’m usually sick of hearing guitars by that point and b.) I’m deaf as fuck too, half the time. I’m glad I threw this on the car stereo though, although it did make me feel a bit awful that I’d been so ignorant to this band existing in the first place.

Doom is literally everywhere now but there’s no-one really repping sludge in South Wales except Hogslayer (not to my knowledge – but then again, I am an idiot) so Bloodlung are a welcome change. It's gutting that these guys broke up as this album is pretty fucking ace and it's a shame to see talent disappear but what can you do? At least they dropped this before they fucked off ;)

Give it a whirl, it's class as fuck. 

Om - Variations On A Theme

Without getting too cringe there is something magical about Om's music. Perhaps it's the chanting, trance-like rhythm of the majority of their songs, or perhaps it's the seemingly perfect balance that Al Cisneros strikes between riff and distortion. Either way, Om can turn a 20 minute song into what feels like one of those daydreams that has lasted only seconds but in your head you have traversed entire worlds. "Shit, how long have I been out?"

I've recently started a new job with a lot of early starts, and as much as I love grindcore and death metal, it quickly became apparent that half 5 in the morning is not the time to listen to something that is so aurally abrasive. This continues to give me ample opportunities to catch up on genres that I usually push to the side, and whilst I feared that listening to Om would put me back to sleep whilst tanning it down the M4 and result in my fiery death, I actually just caught up on a band that I forgot existed and had a banging time listening to something that wasn't intentionally trying to blow my head off.

Press play, you will. 

With The Dead - With The Dead

Fuuuuck me this shit is so heavy, I just had to get my oar in just incase the Doomfinder General shits out a review for this before me! I don't write about that much doom metal these days so I'll take this fairly rare opportunity to plug a new supergroup of slow. With The Dead features the original Electric Wizard backbone dynamic duo (later to perform as Ramesses) joined with ex-Cathedral/Napalm Death crooner and Rise Above Records CEO Lee Dorrian. Now how's that for a good fucking idea?

The result, perhaps expectedly, is somewhere between Dopethrone and Endtyme; a bludgeoning affair of smoggy doom riffery and organ-pulping bass tone. For every stoned wondering of what classic Wizard would have sounded like with Dorrian on vocals, there is now an answer, and that answer will bury you into the fucking ground. There's a bit of classic, trad-doom riffing on "Nephthys" and the odd solo but for the most part this is pure worship to the Wizard sound of old, topped with that magical Cathedral feel. It might seem obvious basing this review around pointing that out, but it's literally perfect. Have a goose. 

Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics

(Words by Richard Lewis, Doomfinder General)

Electric Wizard are... well you should all know who Electric Wizard are. In a just world every person alive should know who Electric Wizard are. If not, go and listen to the song at the bottom of the post, I'll wait...

Come My Fanatics is Electric Wizard's (Electric Wizard Electric Wizard Electric Wizard Electric Wizard) second album but it's the one where they really find their sound. More heaviness, more fuzz, more drugs, more horror movie samples and buckets of misanthropic psychedelia; the whole thing is just wonderful. There are so many good points about this album that it's hard to name them all. From the main riff on "Return Trip" (which I think is in with a shout of being the heaviest thing ever) to the amazing bassy psych of "Solarian 13", and everything in between. Words don't do it justice, so just go and listen to it instead.

Windhand - Soma

(Words by Richard Lewis, Doomfinder General)

Windhand are a doom band from the USA that play the kind of heavy fuzzy as fuck doom with washed out vocals that everyone loves. Whilst some people will read that as Windhand being some sort of second rate Electric Wizard, the reality couldn't be further from the truth.

Opener "Orchard" sums up the overall feel of the album with massive fuzzy riff following massive fuzzy riff while vocalist Dorthia Cottrell's haunting voice helps lull you into an almost trance-like state (which also makes the album being named after the perfect drug from Brave New World far more apt). There is a nice acoustic break about halfway through (which you would think is jarring but  it actually fits really well and I'd like to hear more of it in the future) before it's back to the fuzz which ends with my personal favourite song, "Cassock".

The massive (in both sound and length) "Boleskine" follows, and even at 30 minutes it seems to end too soon. Sometimes you really do just want to listen to the same riff over and over again for about 10 minutes because it's so good. Eventually, it fades and all that is left is the sound of wind and you're left wondering where the last 75 minutes went.

Eyehategod - Eyehategod

Another long-awaiting comeback that paid off by the truckload! Eyehategod have been brewing their self-titled return for nearly 14 years, so it was understandable that fans were getting a bit itchy. But, like I said, the wait paid off. This album is absolutely fucking incredible. You've got the classic Eyehategod vibes as if they never went away, but they've given them a cleaner, modern spin. You could argue that the mud and sludge surrounding Eyehategod's music is what gives it most of it's charm, and previous to hearing the new self-titled I would have completely agreed with you, but the sound on this record is just too damn good to worry about the lack of dirgy production.

For the first time, Eyehategod has the clarity to reach a wider metal audience, for better or worse. I think it'll do them a world of good, as this thing is absolute riff machine. There are no bad tracks per se but "Trying To Crack The Hard Dollar" and "Nobody Told Me" are absolutely glorious. Those riffs, though! Those riffs! Daaaaaaaaayum.

This is the last Eyehategod release to include contributions from drummer Joey LaCraze who sadly passed away before this album was released. I've seen this band live countless times, and they were always crazy heavy and super tight even though they always seemed to play whilst absolutely fucking wasted. R.I.P. Joey! At least this record is a fitting epitaph.

Fistula - Vermin Prolificus

I’ve really been jamming the guts out of this album for the last few weeks. Fistula mix sludgy, messy doom a la Eyehategod with elements of crust and hardcore punk. I personally think that any genre of metal can be vastly improved by adding musical elements of (or just the spirit of) crust punk (Darkthrone’s The Cult Is Alive being a prime example; a vicious bastard of an album that followed a long string of tired recordings, ironically containing zero amounts of crust punk).

Fistula resembles the haunting downtuned bogscapes of Lines In Wax favourites Dragged Into Sunlight with their repetitive, sinister riffs accompanying long, eery passages of sampled vocal monologue usually revolving around drugs, drug abuse and the problem with cops (boy, can’t we all relate to that one). If I had to sum up sludge in one song to an ‘outsider’, opening track “Smoke Cat Hair and Toe Nails” couldn’t go far wrong as a perfect example. The opening riff just melts my face every single time – it’s just so nasty.

“Pig Funeral” is probably the highlight of the record for me; a seething upbeat hate anthem towards the powers that be, that slows down to a chug for more horrendous sampling to unfold. I’m digging this template – fast songs and nasty slow passages accompanied by samples. Bonza! “Interlude” takes this sampling-feast to the very edges of sanity; droning on and on and on before “Goat Brothel” caps off the entire thing like a shotgun blast to the forehead; effectively putting you out of your sludgy misery with a dose of punk attack.

Brilliant.