Sleep – The Sciences

Pete Williams
Reviews
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 the... Read More...

Doomsday // April 2018

Lincoln Jones
Doomsday
Greetings, heaviest of Heavy Bloggers! Welcome to Doomsday, our monthly roundup of some of the most noteworthy releases in the doom world released over the past month. April was a true sleeper month for doom as some of the most titanic releases were saved for the month’s back half. Who knows? Maybe there was even a surprise release last week you heard about perhaps? With this much to bang our heads to, we better get straight to it. Enough chatter! Grab your earplugs, it’s doomsday.

Hypergiant – Father Sky

Jordan Jerabek
Reviews
The early 2000s brought us a wealth of riff-worshipping, bone-quaking goodness  - what has essentially become the foundation of many current doom, stoner, and sludge metal acts. Bands like Mastodon, High on Fire, and Baroness expanded upon the standard set by metal’s forefathers with more progressive tendencies, expansive arrangements, fiercer presentation, technically demanding performances, and (presumably) better strains of grass. At the same time (and likely benefitting from the same improved... *ahem* genetics), there was also a bubble of traditionalists like The Sword, Wolfmother, and Saviours who made the case that a more conventional approach was worth revisiting, reinvigorating classic sounds for a new generation of headbangers. It’s from this very specific nexus that Australia’s Hypergiant explode, harkening back to familiar territories on both sides of this early-00s coin.

Premiere: Olde’s Temple is a Shrine to Doom

Bill Fetty
Premieres
There’s no dearth of bands inspired by the likes of Motorhead or the Obsessed but many miss the mark when trying too hard to emulate their forebears rather than putting their own aggressive stomp on the tried and true sound. This particular blend of blues-y, groove-laden metal often stays too long in its own lane, rarely straying from the formula to stretch and add enough of a band’s individual identity, but when a band is able to take this style and bend it to *their* will is where we get something unique.