The Anatomy Of: As Oceans

Jimmy Rowe
News
North Carolina is an underappreciated hotbed of talent in the American metal scene, where bands like Between the Buried and Me and Corrosion of Conformity, among many others, have come up to inform the progress... Read More...

Doomsday // February 2018

Lincoln Jones
Doomsday
Greetings heaviest of Heavy Bloggers! Welcome to Doomsday, our monthly roundup of all things slow, low, and demonically-toned. 2018 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for doom and, even though Heavy... Read More...

Hey! Listen to Sundr!

Max Jacobson
Listen To This!
Subtlety isn’t a common approach when it comes to sludge metal, which rather favours blistering, distortion-focused guitars and thunderous drums since the notoriously volcanic heaviness of genre spearheads Electric Wizard and Weedeater. Although in a genre that finds it’s bands in a battle of extremes, seeing who can cause the most damage to the PA system with their amps, the 2010s have seen sludge been taken down a number of different avenues. We have Mastodon using it as a basis to conjure up progressive, multi-layered musical odysseys, Indian using noise experimentation to make it as hellishly freaky as possible, to Bongripper putting an emphasis on the direct riffs in creating a mood through repetition. However, we have Melbourne underground head-turners Sundr, dragging the style even further out to a much less assertive sound, yet a much more ethereal and tension-building experience on their vertiginous sophomore LP, The Canvas Sea. 

Thank You For Not Smoking: Variations on a Stoner Doom Theme

Lincoln Jones
Commentary, Deep Dive, Editorials
As a genre, stoner doom has some fairly definitive characteristics: slowed-down tempos, rumbling low-end bass and rhythm, a focus on mountainous, hypnotic riffs, and a certain intangible haze cast over it all, creating a psychedelic-glazed listening experience. But perhaps most importantly, stoner metal worships at the altar of marijuana. Proudly wearing its influence on its sleeve (and name), stoner metal varyingly employs marijuana as a muse, a political rallying cause, an artistic aesthetic, and generally as the raison d'etre for the (sub)genre as a whole. From the smoke-filled cough intro in Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” to Sleep’s epic journey to Jerusalem to Dopelord carrying the genre’s torch in one hand and a bong in the other, stoner doom is fundamentally and un-apologetically intertwined with marijuana. And yet, as firm of a grip as the green leaf has on the genre, there are contingents within the stoner doom scene that don’t embrace weed with the same fervor as their counterparts. Indeed, as counter-intuitive as it seems, examples abound of bands in the stoner doom realm that either explicitly or implicitly eschew the very association with marijuana that the scene largely views as a prerequisite.

What Heavy Blog Is Really Listening To – 6/23/17

Scott Murphy
What We're Really Listening To
For those who missed our last installment, We post biweekly updates covering what the staff at Heavy Blog have been spinning. Given the amount of time we spend on the site telling you about music that does not fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as no surprise that many of us on staff have pretty eclectic tastes that range far outside of metal and heavy things. We can’t post about all of them at length here, but we can at least let you know what we’re actually listening to. For those that would like to participate as well (and please do) can drop a 3X3 in the comments, which can be made with tapmusic.net through your last.fm account, or create it manually with topsters.net. Also, consider these posts open threads to talk about pretty much anything music-related. We love hearing all of your thoughts on this stuff and love being able to nerd out along with all of you.

PREMIERE: Shotgun A Beer To Junior Bruce’s “Lion’s Teeth”

Heavy Blog
Premieres
While some subgenres of heavy music seem to fit better and have more of an impact on the listener during certain times of the year, there’s simply never a bad or inopportune time to throw on some sludge metal and envelop oneself in a sea of fuzz. Even though bands have been tipping their hats to the likes of Tony Iommi and Matt Pike for decades now, it almost always feels refreshing to hear a band casting aside their proclivities for dense orchestration and simply just rocking the fuck out. That’s where Florida’s Junior Bruce comes in.