Visit the Dusty Field Where Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree

Scott Murphy
Listen To This!
Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree piqued my interest from the moment I came across their Bandcamp page. Much of what first drew me to Earth's masterpiece Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull is present on BMHVT's debut Medicine: an alluring cover, unique title and promises of an expansive, mesmerizing take on doom metal. It's this last point that sweetened the deal like hemp-infused honey candy, and if you're at all a fan of all things sludge and doom, you'd be wise to succumb to what this psychedelic dose of Medicine has to offer.

Best Of – Stoner Metal

Scott Murphy
Best Of
Well, here we are - The Weed Day. While we've already done a For Fans Of post for Sleep, today we're finally going to sit down, rip a "few" bong hits and share what we believe to be the best albums stoner metal has to offer. We're rolling up to all the genre's classics today, of course, starting with the auditory sweet leaf that first lit it up. But we've also aimed to smoke our way through the genre's hazy history with landmark albums from the past several decades, including modern classics in the making that are equally worthy of being your soundtrack for the day. So without further ado—because we know how short your attention span is today—grab your bowl, bong and/or blunt and celebrate the best music for your lazy, smoke-filled afternoon.

Twinesuns – The Empire Never Ended

Scott Murphy
Reviews
Nearly every drone metal album is bound to receive the inevitable comparison to Sunn O))), and unsurprisingly so. Drone is a difficult genre to master, what with it's focus on mood and experience instead of typical songwriting tropes. Yet, while perusing reviews of Crystal Shipsss' I Will See No Moon No Sky a couple years ago before writing my own, I found a blog with an interesting take on the album genre. While not verbatim, their general assertion was as follows: Crystal Shipsss' brand of drone metal may recall Sunn O))), but in the end, no band can claim ownership of "the drone." But let's fast forward a bit - what exactly does any of this have to do with Twinesuns' excellent new album, The Empire Never Ended? Well, after but a few minutes into the album, it'll become clear that 1.) the bands sounds like Sunn O))) & 2.) this by no means discounts the sheer intensity and invention that they bring to the genre.

For Fans Of – Sleep

Heavy Blog
For Fans Of
For Fans Of is a column that takes one very well-known and popular band that our writers and readers are fans of, and then our staff write about a small group of lesser-known bands that do similar things and who we think you all might like as well and give a listen to. Whenever we discuss the topic of discussion for our next For Fans Of segment, one of the first things we consider is what genres we haven't picked veteran bands from yet. FFO: Emperor came about due to the desire to cover black metal, and this time around, the colossal riffs of doom metal became the theme of the nominating process. And while there's no shortage of bands deserving of the inaugural doom FFO, there's really no contesting our final selection of stoner-doom legends Sleep, one of the pinnacles of the genre with an amount of influence approaching that of Black Sabbath. From the the heavy stoner imagery to the even heavier riffs to the band's demise creating to equally incredible bands (High on Fire and Om), there really is no way to understate just how important these Cali potheads were for the genre and metal as whole. As we all wait for the recently reunited band to (hopefully) release a new full-length, check out some of the newer doom bands that have capably carried the pot leaf flag into new and exciting territory.

Sunn O))) – Kannon

Scott Murphy
Reviews
There's no contention that Sunn O))) masterminds Greg Anderson & Stephen O'Malley have remained active in the six years since Monoliths & Dimensions (2009). This year alone (before Kannon was even annou... Read More...