Soundtrack To My Year 2015

As usual, although most albums have been released this year,

if something has blown my mind and is "new' to my ears, it

will also feature here. Because I was mainly absent this year,
a lot of reviews have been taken from reviews I did for
Stoner HiVe or the Doom Charts.

Rest assured though, each and every one

of the following has made me jump up and down or at the

very least, transported me from the dreadful, humdrum

existence of reality to a place of passion, dreams and worship

of the dark, damp underground music that raises my spirits.

1. Moon Curse - Spirit Remains

Throbbing, majestic slabs of psychedelic doom.

2. Abrams - Lust, Love, Loss

A heady mix of stoner and hardcore.

3. High On Fire - Luminiferous

Leaving all comparisons of Sleep behind, Matt Pike and Co

gave us an album for of searing solos, alien mind control

and riffs that shook my fucking soul.

4. Black Rainbows - Hawkdope

     

Heavy, groovy, unstoppable with hints of space rock expansiveness 

combine with driving Stoner song structures to make each track 

sound like a classic cut on first hearing. Hints of fuzz electric blues 

are scattered throughout with searing effect and yes, it does 

make me want to drive faster with my arm hanging out of the window, 

music blaring from the speakers on the way to some humdrum place of 

work, having my soul lifted by this potential masterpiece.

5. Miles Davis - Live In Tokyo 1975

Unreleased broadcast recorded 10 days before the Agharta and 

Pangaea concerts, this has a rawer sound and has Miles and the two

guitarists trying to outdo each other in a war of wah-wah pedals.

6. Acid King - Middle Of Nowhere, 
Center Of Everywhere 

This is Stoner, Fuzz-laden Doom Blues with a palpable feeling 

of tripped out vibes that is rarely heard these days.

7. With The Dead - S/T

Expectations were high with this doom "supergroup".  Guess

what? It lived up to the hype - dense, raw and infused with a 

feeling of suffocation. Nice.

8. KEN mode - Success

Thick, dense and brutal  - hardcore/noise rock that cut

through the fog in my mind.

9. Windhand - Grief's Internal Flower

Misery and doom has never sounded so beautiful or haunting.

10. Bersaerk - Mulm

Bersærk take the stoner template and stomp all over it with

a hardcore attitude giving you 9 tracks that start off fast and

furious and that do not stop until the end. Hailing from Denmark, this 

has had the same effect on me when I first heard Kvelertak - 

jumping up and down with a stupid grin on 

my face.

11. Goya - Obelisk

Big hypnotic grooves give you a trip into the more psychedelic 

realms of doom by riffing to an almost mantra like refrain that lodges 

deep into your cortex fluids on a primal level to make your body slowly 

jerk and move to the primitive and shamanistic tunes that have clearly been 

spawned by unclean thoughts and in-pure impulses to damage people 

with slow, fuzzed guitars and low-end tuning.

12. James Brown - Sho' Is Funky Down Here 1971

     

All instrumental and full of heavy fuzzed-out guitars in a jazzy 

psychedelic rock style, resembling the first records by Funkadelic.

Or as LK Ultra said " It's a bit like MC5 scoring a soft-core porno 

in places. I can see a man with an afro and a mustache in a turtleneck 

stepping out of the driver's side door in the middle of an intersection 

on a hot afternoon. He pulls up his sidearm and shoots from the hip, 

blinking as he does so. Across the street a clean-shaven guy in a blue, 

open-collar dress shirt, gold chains and bright yellow pants throws his arms 

up after being hit. He then spins backwards and falls face first against 

the wall which he slides down very, very slowly. The man with the 

mustache and afro blows the smoke from the tip of the gun, then casually 

gets back into his car and finishes his turn. Never once does this man show 

any emotion."

13. Dopethrone - Hochelaga

Sludge stoner doom with riffage stolen from Hell. Swamp

blues weighed down with menace and power.

14. Gorgantherron - Second Sun

Heavy, heavy metal stoner that rocks like a bastard from

start to finish with swagger and beer.

15. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - 

Night Creeper

I have had this album on repeat and find myself drifting into the 

coldness of a foggy London night as twilight descends upon you and 

the dark, dank shadow shrouded streets beckon with hints of strange 

pleasures or the kiss of a razor blade only to be jolted out my fevered dream 

state with a fuzz filled solo and find my head is slowly nodding to the 

majestic songs that are starting to feel like the best thing I have played for ages.

16. Coliseum - Anxiety's Kiss

Hardcore that takes the AmRep template and runs with it - 

heavy without being brutal ...beautiful pain.

17. Witchskull - The Vast Electric Dark

These Aussie rockers have come up with a compelling and 

addictive slice of heavy sounds that just gets better the more 

you play it. NWOBHM rubs shoulders with Motorhead and Trouble 

giving them a template from which they launch blistering salvos of 

hook laden riffs and fist pumping tunes. This is rumbling Stoner/Doom 

with it’s own identity – not just another band ripping off some shit from 

the past and thinking that is enough.

18. Mammoth Salmon - Last Vestige Of Humanity

This is Doom that has enough venom and raspy vocals to veer 

into Sludge with vicious intent. The fuzzed bass is up front in the 

mix and powers the songs along as an anchor to the drums that sound 

like they are being attacked with hatred.

19. The Black Wizards - Lake Of Fire

Huge sounding and massive, The Black Wizards play Classic
Rock and Stoner with authority and power. Add some Proto-
Doom and all is well.

The riffs are as Sabbathy as you like without being

too obvious which of course means they fucking rock

like a mountain avalanche. Mid paced songs morph into

slow hymns of despair but the melodic and fuzzed solos stop

any signs of wrist slashing  - instead you have the uncontrollable

urge to start nodding and foot stomping.

20. The Shrine - Rare Breed

Lip smacking, fuzz stomping, amp humping,

solo shredding, MC5 riffing, crowd surfing,

bass throbbing, beer drinking, drum pounding,

drug snorting, sweat flying, fist punching,

head banging, chorus shouting, throat straining,

foot stomping, Flying V playing, ear bleeding,

rabble rousing fucking rock'n'roll.

..........................................................................

I cannot be be arsed to do this anymore so here is the

rest in list form - no real order, they are all immense

albums and depending what mood I am in will change places

every day. And to be honest, I am only really playing the 1st

3 Motorhead albums at the moment anyway.

Ecstatic Vision – Sonic Praise

Psychopunch – Sweet Baby Octane

Shining – International Black Jazz Society

Jess & The Ancient Ones – Second Psychedelic Coming: 

The Aquarius Tapes

Lumberjack – Land Of Decay

Rukh – Tickets For A Second Round

The Who – Live In Hull ‘73

Beerwolf – Oracle’s Prophecy

Out Of Earth – S/T

Six Organs Of Admittance – Hexadic

Captain Beefheart – Mirror Man 1974

Killer Boogie – Detroit

Shepherd – Stereolithic Riffalocalypse

Lacertillia – Crashing Into The Future

Rifflord – 26 Mean And Heavy

Mathusalem – Revival

Lord Montague – The Cave

Satori Junk – S/T

Witchsorrow – No Light, Only Fire

Space Probe Taurus – Mondo Satan

Ufomammut – Ecate

Luna Sol – Blood Moon

John Cale – Sabotage 1979

Atomic Bitchwax – Graviton

Hard Action – Sinister Vibes

Silent Snare – Darken

Barbarian Fist – The Whorelord Cometh

Seedy Jeezus – S/T

Glowsun – Beyond the Wall Of Time

Ruby The Hatchet – Aurum

Prophets Of Saturn – Retronauts

Kadavar – Berlin

Savanah – Deep Shades

Disenchanter – Strange Creations

Brain Pyramid – Magnetosphere

The Bottle Doom Lazy Band – Lost N’Drunk

Lizards Exist – S/T

Huntress – Static

Lowburn – Doomsayer

Swamp Ritual – Ritual Rising

Plainride – Return Of The Jackalope

We Hunt Buffalo – Living Ghosts

Wizard Eye – S/T

Beggars – Devil’s Highway

Dreadnought – Bridging Realms

The Heavy Eyes – He Dreams Of Lions

Ponamero Sundown – Veddesta

So now you know what my brain sounds like.

This post is dedicated to Joop.