Doom Charts February

Hey, some people including me write stuff about Doom albums.

DooooooooooooooooM!

Serpent – Nekromant

There is a freshness and urgency to Serpent that makes this 

album sound like a classic already. Proto-metal riffs jostle with 

Stoner Blues headbanging tunes which have been dipped in the 

potent brew that is early Sabbath. 

There is no dicking around here – with a plug in, turn up and play 

attitude, the sound is heavy, dense but with an uplifting feeling of 

fist-pumping joy. The unstoppable groove monster these Swedes are 

playing just make me realise that sometimes all I want to do is hear 

some heavy rock played with power and epic tunes. With the growing 

success of Graveyard and Kadavar slowly spreading, it would be an 

injustice if this album does not get the recognition it deserves.

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Pristine - Reboot

Hey you, yeah, you reading this now. You look like the kinda
person who likes up-tempo tunes performed by a modern beat-combo.
Are you wandering around sad and desperate because there is no
new album from Electric Citizen or The Blues Pills? 

Do ya dig heavy blues with a Stoner attitude?
Sung by a female fury full of passion and brimstone?
Do you like screaming guitar solos?
Pounding rhythm sections?
Tasteful use of a mouth organ?
Swirly Hammond organ breaks?
 Do ya like to bang your head in time to stomping tunes?
Howzabout psychedelic sections?
Epic soulful songs that start wistful and end heavy?
Whattabout kicking melodies combined with power?

If you have answered yes to all of the above, you need to hear
the Pristine album.

If you answered yes to a lot of the above, you need to hear
the Pristine album.

If you hate all the above and only listen to downtuned, bleak doom
filth sludge drone metal, you need to hear the Pristine album………
 go on, I won’t tell anyone!

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Love Sex Machine - Asexual Anger

With their last album coming out in 2012, Love Sex Machine 

play sludge and then stomp over everything with rage and 

aggression.

This is wildly ferocious stuff which is de-tuned to make

your guts throb in time to the beats. The vocal howls

are buried deep in the mix which add to the dark heavy

atmosphere created by the sonic hurricane of power.

The core of their sound hasn't changed : gut-punching guitars, 

irresistible slow and chuggy riffs that create an apocalyptic wall of 

sound only pierced by hellish shrieks. I am not sure what they put in 

the water over in France but this album is a fine addition to the 

group of bands already killing innocent bystanders.  

Thick and dense, this pummels your speakers from 

start to finish. This is not for the faint-hearted! When the

 end of the world comes, this will be the soundtrack.

Thanks to Geraud and Lost Pilgrims Records for the promo.

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ROSY FINCH - WITCHBORO 2015

Guest Writer Doug E Dogg

Mr Maim occasionally attaches a very brief note to some of 

the new albums he sends me, mainly to give me some reassurance

 it isn't a "window chucker" ! This phrase arose from some 

albums he did for me many years ago which, when I gave 

him my thoughts on them, stated that my finger was hovering 

over the electric window switch in readiness to hurl the soon 

to be ejected cd from my car ! This very fine album was in 

no danger of this fate from the moment it started 

blaring out of the speakers.

Tony's note read... " what if The Runaways had formed today, 

raised on stoner bands ?"......as so often he was absolutely 

spot on ! They are a 3 piece from Spain with Mireia on guitar and 

vocals, Elena on bass and vocals and Lluis on drums. The vocals 

having that certain desperate throat ripping Joan Jett-ishness to 

them...a good thing in my book. This threesome make a very fine

 racket throughout with shitloads of other influences thrown in 

for good measure....Hole, Babes In Toyland, L7, Girlschool and 

The Lunachicks come to mind. Tracks range from full on foot 

stompers with a fuzzed up metal glam feel, to those containing 

moments of incredibly oppressive heaviness, to numbers that 

either lurch suddenly into full gear almost taking you by surprise 

by their brutality and change of pace or ones that slowly build to 

a crescendo that makes you reach for the repeat play button as the

 track fades out.

The best example of the latter is the breathtakingly 

atmospheric "Ligeia" which is probably my favourite new track of 2015. 

The musicianship and production are first class throughout and 

I keenly look forward to hearing any future offerings.

To get some idea what I'm blabbering on about  

I urge you to check out the whole album...NOW !

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Black Tusk - Pillars Of Ash

Black Tusk are back after the tragic events of 2014 and 

have returned to play some heavy based sludge punk with 

some elements of metal thrown in to make sure you are not 

getting too comfortable.

The tracks are primitive monsters, light on solos but fucking heavy

on the riffs. If early Discharge covering High On Fire

floats ya boat, keep on reading this.

The sonic production is awesome - thick, aggressive and full of

low-end battering to shake your pretty little eardrums to bits.

Fuzzed guitars have the distortion dial on 11 but never so far 

up in the mix that the bass and drums get lost.

With song titles like "Born Of Strife" and "Bleed On Your 

Knees", you need a vocalist who sounds like a rabid dingo

tearing at the corpse of clean singing while drinking moonshine

 lager mixed with the dregs of a hundred used bongs - and guess

what - they have!

Black Tusk are back and stronger than ever. 

This is the good stuff - get it now.

Thanks to Relapse Records for promo copy.

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PROPHETS OF SATURN - RETRONAUTS 2015

Guest writer - Doug E Dogg

This is quite frankly fucking awesome !!.....a 4 piece...

from the Midlands of the UK....very hairy.....vocals, guitar bass and drums

.....massively heavy and doom laden....it sounds like I'm describing 

Sabbath doesn't it ?...but No. Fair enough, there are more than the usual 

amount of comparisons to be drawn but with this genre of music if there 

aren't some then it wouldn't be properly heavy would it ? Its plain to the 

listener that this band love early Sabbath and also have Electric Wizards' 

"Dopethrone" on repeat play in the tour bus....and also have an 

appreciation of Hawkwind circa '71 to '73....I'll explain that shortly.

Lets have a look at the 4 great tracks they have created for our 

head nodding entertainment...

1. Retronauts - 8 minutes of the very highest quality doom space 

stoner containing massively enjoyable riffs that just burrow 

into your brain and refuse to get out again ! Having been listening 

predominately to Lemmy's output from the late 60's to date for the 

last week or so, this track has a certain Hawkwind-ish feel to it 

with the big repetitive riff, vocal phrasing and overall driving 

sound not dissimilar to the long sprawling live tracks on the Space

 Ritual album from '73. Absolutely marvellous...in fact if this track 

was just extended by say, half an hour, I'd be even happier !

2. The Ultra Wizards - as it starts it appears to be a slightly more 

upbeat number being more stoner than doom but then halfway 

through a mega heavy doom riff is introduced which takes it down

 into a very dark place indeed. Mmmmm !!

3. Witchrider - This has the pacing and feel of Sabs "Fairies Wear 

Boots" and bowls along like some unstoppable force, all the time 

seemingly picking up speed and getting nastier the longer it goes 

on. A brisker than usual take on doom...apologies for the constant 

Sabs references but I like classic old Sabbath very much and view 

such comparisons as a complement rather than anything derogatory 

when the band concerned have produced something so good.

4. Damavand - Ahhh...16 minutes....that's more like it.....Nice 

gentle intro gives way to a brutal all instrument assault which 

could be used as a soundtrack to a film about a medieval siege where 

the attackers have a massive battering ram with which they are trying

 to get into a castle ! The early riff most satisfyingly morphs into 

the stuff of dreams then all of a sudden we have an atmospheric

 eerie section to get our collective breath back before it all starts up 

again before finally fading out with whining feedback ringing in 

our ears......Phew !

I suspect the recording studio floor after tracks 1 and 4 were 

completed was covered in shredded plectrums, lumps of finger 

tip flesh, blood, pieces of fractured cymbals, broken drumsticks

 and discarded drum skins !!

I just have one minor quibble....its only 36 minutes long......

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The Ones I Missed

Up in Maim Towers, I get sent a lot of stuff to listen to.

And hey, some top notch albums came after I had

compiled my life-changing and indeed, mind-

altering Best of 2015 list. Below are albums that

should of been way up near the top.

Serpent - Nekromant

Pigs - Wronger

Egypt - Endless Flight

Yuri Gagarin - At The Centre Of All Infinity

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.

 

Lemmy, you glorious bastard!

Early '77 and me and my mates are started to get exited

about the PUNK ROCK we were hearing about. We

made our first of many trips to Rough Trade records in 

Portobello market and I came away with 4 punk singles:

New Rose by the Damned, White Riot by The Clash,

Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones and Motorhead by - 

of course - Motorhead. 

The Motorhead single was everything that I wanted and indeed

had heard about punk. Fast, dirty, distorted, sneery and all with

a feral energy piled into a sound that was glorious. Then I was

told they were not punk.......huh? Fuck that, their first album 

became my blueprint for heavy. The only other albums I got

around that time that ever measured up were:

Never Mind The Bollocks, Raw Power and Inflammable Material.

Living in London put me in the very lucky position  of being able

to see Motorhead every time they played there. The Roundhouse

after the first album came out. The Overkill tour meant Hammersmith

Odeon, The Lyceum then down to Brighton at The Dome and a quick

Trip up the M1 the the Birmingham Odeon.

In the meantime, Lemmy was always in a pub halfway down

Portabello Road on a Sunday - cannot remember what it was

called now - Kings Head/Arms? - and as long as he was kept

supplied with Vodka and Cokes + as much money as he

wanted to put into the fruit machine, he would regale me and

my friend Andy with tales about Hawkwind, touring England

with the 'Head and generally shooting the shit with 2 fan boys.

He never knew our names but knew we were avid fans who

would turn up to his boozer quite a lot. He would always want to

see which records we had brought and seemed to know everyone

in the music scene. He was also fucking great to us - 3 times

he told us to turn up to venues early and he would get us in the

back doors. The last Overkill date and 2 dates on the Bomber

tour we turned up thinking that we were gonna be stiffed but

he - or a crew member would stick their head around the door,

tell us to shift some amps and get us in. He did not have to

do that but fuck me, what a glorious bastard, he did. After

the Bomber album came out, the organisation and world tours

we never got to really mingle with Lemmy again but who

cared - for 7/8 months we were hanging around the edges

of Lemmy and Co and no-one can ever take that away

from me. Although I wish that someone would take away

the time we went to The Lyceum 2 nights in a row

and in a drunken fit of headbanging climbed as close as

we could to the PA stack the bass went through and

stayed there all night. Lemmy killed my left ear .............

for ever!

Every year Motorhead would try to play a gig as close as

they could on Nov 5th - normally at Hammersmith Odeon.

With the Bomber tour, they had the massive fucking massive 

metal bomber lighting rig. There were some fireworks that

were attached to wires and I suppose would fly over the stage

but for some reason, they just stopped over Philthy's head

and exploded as he was playing Overkill. God fucking bless him,

even though his kit appeared to be burning, he still played on

laughing like a maniac. God bless you sir.