As soon as January hits; we’ll return to the normal amount of posts, don’t you worry… For if you want daily news, reviews, interviews or rants about heavy music, visit one of the sites from the contributors… There are many, there are plenty and they all rock in their own way! Anyway; we’ve been completely swallowed up by all those glances back at 2021, all those personal lists and that final Top 100 of the best heavy albums released in 2021. But sure enough, the January 2022 edition of the Doom Charts is already almost bursting through the door… Can you hear it scratching and screaming?! But hey, we still have a little Peroration Post for December to post as well… So here it comes!
You know the deal, the blurbs below are the ones that the Doom Chart Contributors wrote because they loved a certain album so much and assumed it would make the Final 25 for last month regular edition. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. For whatever reason. Sometimes an album is just too brutal, too kraut, too garage, too black, too grind, too folk, etc, ad infinitum. But we should not let that love go to waste! For the love for that album is real and might inspire that same amount of adoration in other heavy rock fiends! So, we post them here, together with all the possible double blurbs received…
The following are professions of love and adoration by Doom Charts Contributors for albums they could not stop spinning. Each month, the Doom Charts critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and other sorts of heavy rock albums. The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart which is published monthly. However, sometimes a love is so great, but the album unfortunately did not make the published Doom Charts Edition. You can peruse that love here…
ANATOMY OF HABIT – EVEN IF IT TAKES A LIFETIME
Industrial rock, cold wave, heavy prog, experimental psych and doom metal are blended together to obtain the dark sound of ANATOMY OF HABIT‘s post punk. Obviously, crossing boundaries of genres is a big part of their work. To complement the dark and poetic aspect of the music, the mostly abstract lyrics are sung by a deep and warm voice. During 40 minutes (3 tracks) this album is totally captivating.
~ Thierry “Pumpkin-T“ François
BLACK SPELL – THE PURPLE SKULL
BLACK SPELL play a superb mix of doom-tainted sludge that threatens to obliterate everything in its path. Despairing, bleak vocals echo out a litany of fury that are always fighting to be heard above the fat, heavy guitar tones that are crashing out gargantuan riffs. This album is made up of tracks that take you to a dark swamp, cut your eyes with razors and leave you to slowly sink into the mire. Passages within the songs do pick up the pace at times before descending back into the thick, bad-drug vibe that pervades the BLACK SPELL sound. The crowning glory as far as I am concerned, are the outrageously fuzzed guitar solos that forge the psychedelic with the heavy – kinda like Vanilla Fudge crossed with Electric Wizard. At times I find this genre sometimes suffers from a generic template but in my eyes, Black Spell have produced one of the Doom albums of the year. Released on Forbidden Place Records.
~ Tony Maim
Heavily distorted Hendrixian guitar solo’s screaming over backdrops of raw scuzzy acidic doom are what DEMONIO bring to the table with “Electric Voodoo” and quite frankly i can’t see us ever being able to use that table again.
~ Frazer Jones
Among a whole bunch of heavy rock albums, this one has a strong personality and specific aesthetic: samples from movies or documentaries are integrated into the songs, the voices and vocal harmonies are finely worked, riffs and melodies seem inspired by the classic rock. Night Giants doesn’t have to be tamed the first time you listen to it but its richness and originality can easily get you hooked.
~ Thierry “Pumpkin-T“ François
Oakland based punked up noise/sludgers GLOWING BRAIN are that one late-in-the-year album that I’m going to kick myself for a few months about missing when I was making my year end list cause I got to them a few days after the list was done. Heavier than Annihilation Time, sludgier than Motorhead, but way more punk than their obvious contemporaries, this album just rips full tilt punk rock n roll through every fuzz pedal they could find and crank it to 11!
~ Remi VL
Thick reverberating guitar tones. low growling bottom end and thunderous percussion are what we have come to expect when we see the words Poland and doom placed in the same sentence and what we expect is exactly what MOONSTONE deliver with “1904“.
~ Frazer Jones
PILGRIMAGE – SIGIL OF THE PILGRIM SUN
Funeral doom death. Slow riffs crawl slower and slower, weighed down by the pain and anguish of the world. Paradise Lost on downers.
~ Steve Woodier
Premier HM-2 death metal. Chainsaw guitars rasp deeper, milk curdles and flower petals wither and turn black. REEK are described as a death n roll band but this relentless onslaught is more death n roll over and die.
~ Steve Woodier
THE RODS – HEAVIER THAN THOU (Reissue)
A band from New York given honorary status as members of the NWOBHM movement at its peak. THE RODS features David ‘Rock’ Feinstein on guitar who played with his Cousin Ronnie James Dio in Elf. There is more of a nod towards ‘British Steel’ era Judas Priest in this album though, rather than Dio.
~ Steve Woodier
THE SPACELORDS – UNKNOWN SPECIES
If you feel the need to take a trip through space, go no further! Unknown Species is an absolute psychedelic space rock masterpiece; a must have! After seven albums, the German spacemen are tirelessly doing it once again! It’s amazing how this band never fails to mesmerize us! The song Time Tunnel will surprise you with a different musical approach. Long live the spacelords and Rock On!
~ Eric Varasifsky
All an explosive madness, in an addictive album that will not leave you indifferent. Filled with diabolical sounds of great hypnotism, SPECK invites us to a bacchanal of hypnotic and captivating psychedelia. Frenetic rhythms, spatial setting, and tons of psychotropics in every riff. Somewhere between Earthless and Hawkwind, SPECK finds his place to make our heads fly with his psychedelic infernal sound.
~ Roberto Lucas
WEEDPECKER – IV: THE STREAM OF FORGOTTEN THOUGHTS
Polish Psychonauts WEEDPECKER bring their singular brand of Melodic Sludgy Stoner Rock to melting point on “The Stream Of Forgotten Thoughts”. 8 tracks of prime lysergic loudness guaranteed to take you off on mind-bending adventures. Excellent!
~ Reek of STOOM
More mature than their previous albums, WEEDPECKER seem to be embarking on a new path in their sound. With complex psycho-progressive themes, the band approaches the dictates of bands like Motorpsycho without giving up their psychedelic essence. Creating songs rich in nuances and with a thousand twists in their development, they dispense with the heaviness to experiment with more elaborate and tasty harmonies in nuances. If in the album as a whole, his songs reflect greater complexity, it should be noted that the guitar solos always appear when you least expect them to give each song a shine. Packed with progressive elements, the songs feel polished, taking care of the details, which makes them fascinating.
~ Roberto Lucas
And a special thanks goes out to Doktor420 for the cover image…
If you listen, it will doom…
Special thanks to the ongoing contributors to the monthly Doom Chart. You folks help give voice to the heavy underground:
Aaron Pickford (The Sludgelord); Adam Walsh (Earmunchies); Andy Benson (Nerve Salad); Andy Kovalcik (Bandcamp-NYP-Hard&Heavy); Bill Goodman (The Evil Engineer); Billy Goate (Doomed & Stoned); Bob “Mr. Weird Beard” Baker (More Fuzz Podcast); Bobby Rayfield (Trendkill Radio); Brandon Collins (Super Dank Metal Jams); Bucky Brown (The Ripple Effect); Clint Willis (Hand of Doom Radio); Chris Beck (Doom Tomb Podcast); Chris Latta (Ghost Cult Magazine); Chris Tighe (The Mighty Decibal); The Doom Oracle (Spectral Ecstacy); Doomsday Jesus (DoomsdaysJesus); Duncan Evans (Alternative Control); Eric Varasiftsky (Stoner Rock Army); Frazer Jones (Desert Psychlist); Fuzzy Cracklins (Fuzzy Cracklins); Geoff Leppard (Atom Heart Mutha); Graur Zaur (Crypt Guard); Gruby (Doomsmoker); Günther “Doktor420” (Stoner HiVe); Héctor “Mr. Heavyhead” Hurtado (More Fuzz); Hugo Hulleman (Metalfan.nl,Orange Maze); Ioannis Valiakos (Desert Vulture); Jamey Morris (Fistful of DOOM); Jay Morgan (High Desert Valley Radio); Jim Thompson (Heavy in the Hills); JJ “HP Taskmaster”Koczan (The Obelisk); John Gist, (Vegas Rock Revolution); Jonny Pirie (Hour of the Riff); Joop Konraad (Stoner HiVe); Ken Elliott (Heavy Planet); Leanne Ridgeway (Riff Relevant); Magnus Tannergren (Into The Void Radio); Marc-Eric Gagnon (Stonefly Effects); Marc C. Pietrek (Vitriol INC / A Dark United Front); Mark Partin (The Ripple Effect); Matt Slighter (Cheeto) (Hwy 420, Core of Destruction Radio) Matthew Thomas (Taste Nation); Mathieu Van Der Hert (Dutch European Stoner Rock); Mel Lie (Sunday’s Heavy Tunes); Mike Williams (I Talk to Planets); Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker (The Ripple Effect); ‘Papa’ Paul Rote (Doomed & Stoned); Reek of STOOM (Doomed&Stoned, Stoner HiVe); Remi (Remi VL); Roberto Lucas (Denpa Fuzz); Roberto Fuentes (La Habitación 235); Robert Pannell (Doom Loom); Rod Reinhardt (Captain Beyond Zen); Roman Tamayo (Doomed & Stoned); Shasta Beast (Stoner HiVe); Steve Howe (Outlaws of the Sun); Steve Rodger (God’s Holy Trousers); Steve Woodier (Deathrattle Podcast); Tanguy ‘Mr Fuzz’ Dupré (More Fuzz); Thierry “Pumpkin-T“ François (Metal Intégral); Tom Hanno (Tom’s Album Reviews); Tom Schmahl (Rock Circuz); Tony Maim (Black Insect Laughter, Stoner HiVe); Tony Van Dorston (Fast n Bulbous); Wombat Tarantino (Wombat Cult)
Feel free to send in your albums to stonerdoomcharts@gmail.com where they’ll be delegated to the crew above to determine their thoughts and gather the votes at the end of the month. Leave us comments below and let us know what you think about the Charts.
Doom Charts 