Greetings, heaviest of Heavy Bloggers! Welcome to Doomsday, our monthly roundup of all new and noteworthy in the world of doom. There’s no denying it; we are officially in the dog days of summer and, believe it or not, the only way to beat the heat is to fight fire…
Female vocalists in doom metal bands are far from a dime-a-dozen, but their presence is thankfully much more common than in previous decades of metal’s existence. There’s something utterly transfixing about soaring female vocals covering all the heaviness of doom metal in a haunting, ethereal light. Nina Saeidi is the…
Last year, Polish trio stoner doom trio Spaceslug coughed up two worthwhile slabs of psychedelic and forward-thinking beefiness. They are great albums, but more importantly, they cemented the group’s distinct identity. They aren’t quite your daddy’s bloodshot-eyed stoner metal dirtbags, nor do they strive to achieve soul-crushing gloom via monolithic…
Just two years after their debut, Cathedral pumped up the tempo and incorporated a slew of influences stretching beyond their solid, but somewhat limited, doom metal sound on Forest of Equilibrium. Shades of sludge à la Black Flag and The Melvins are most apparent, but the band reaches further beyond the low-and-slow realm to pull in influences from hard rock, heavy metal and progressive rock. Most importantly, the band’s vibrant personality sheds its skin entirely and reveals its true colors, thanks in large part by an unhinged, dynamic vocal performance from Lee Dorrian. It’s an exceptional combination that slightly edges out the band’s initial groundbreaking efforts. Whereas several bands contributed to the sound developed in part by Cathedral on Forest of Equilibrium, there’s never really been an album that sounds quite like The Ethereal Mirror, and it remains a multifaceted album with reverberations felt in music from the likes of Baroness, Pallbearer and a decent chunk of modern stoner metal.
Greetings, heaviest of Heavy Bloggers! Welcome to Doomsday, our celebratory roundup of all things slow and low, doom and gloom that may have slipped under the radar over the past month (or so). I’ll be frank, fellow doomheads: the month of June, at least for this author, was dominated by…
Success, the cliché insists, is a double-edged sword. History (and the Encyclopedia Metallum archives) is littered with now-defunct bands who toiled away for years in storage units and near-empty basements, yearning for record deals and the elusive larger acclaim that remained just beyond their grasp. But what of the bands…
Greetings heaviest of Heavy Bloggers! Welcome to Doomsday, our monthly roundup of all things slow, low, and otherwise doom related. 2018 is truly picking up steam and I’m (not at all) embarrassed to admit that I’ve already begun thinking about my year-end sludge pile and what records might make it…
Being an up and coming doom band in the UK is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the arguable home of doom metal seems like the blessed and fertile ground to begin conjuring the magic of slow and low, with the immense history and a nearly overwhelming…
Flick…flick…bubble…exhale. Though maybe there should be a few extra flicks and bubbles since we’ve been waiting nearly 20 years for a new Sleep record. The stoner legends surprised us all on April 20th when they dropped The Sciences with less than 24 hours notice. And their first album since the…
Five years on from their atmospheric, neofolk-inspired album, A Forgotten Land, Australia’s Encircling Sea have returned with a release that takes the band’s unique blend of black, post, and doom metal in a fresh new direction. While their latest effort, Hearken, retains elements from all these genres, it tends to…
