“There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.”

~ David Bowie

Can you feel it? The wave that keeps growing? The mighty Heavy Underground swell? We sure can! And to keep up with the ever growing, towering mountain of Heavy releases we need to keep growing and doing our best as well. The search demands it… So, the Doom Charts keep expanding; and we’re honored to welcome a few new members again. Ryan Foster from Slightly Fuzzed, Ben Bellum from The Greatest Thing You Never Heard, JC Cansdale-Cook from Metal Observer and The MotorFuzzin’ Ibex and Nick Pipitone from Monster Riff and The Third Eye. All heavy rock lovin’ crazies that understand that urge to keep searching for the best of heavy riffs out there… And we, together with all of you, will continue to search along…

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 for whatever reason the album unfortunately did not make the published Doom Charts Edition or because there were so many contributors in love with that one album, that many decided to send blurbs for it, and only one got published… You can peruse that love here…

COMMONER – I
Stoner Metal, Punk, Doom
Norwich, UK

Thick crunching riffs, thundering rhythms big loud aggressive vocals mixed up with twin guitar harmonies and bluesy lead work, This album is promisingly entitled “I” can’t wait to hear what they deliver with “II”.
~ Frazer Jones (Desert Psychlist)

EARLY MOODS – EARLY MOODS
Doom Metal, Heavy Metal
Los Angeles, California
Riding Easy Records

1971 proto-metal claws its way out of the speakers from the first to the last note. Sprinkle on a dash of NWOBHM and you’ve got my attention and admiration. Helluva sophomore effort!
~ Gravitoyd (Gravitoyd Heavy Music)

Some bands just think they can throw a riff out there and tune down and now they should be considered in the conversation. EARLY MOODS is not that. There is no posing or pretending here. These guys live up to Sabbath Worship in all the right ways. There is no shame in wearing that on your sleeve when what you are doing is pure and executed flawlessly. If you love the proto/Sabbath/70s vibes and want the best of the best who are doing it today, this is the album for you.
~ Rich Piva (Musipedia of Metal, FuzzDoomRip)

Whether you’re in the mood for killer solos, vocal harmonies, menacing breakdowns or searing leads, EARLY MOODS has you fulfilled. Everything about this is bad ass.
~ Bucky Brown (The Ripple Effect)

ENDONOMOS – ENDONOMOS
Black, Death, Epic Doom Metal
Austria
Argonauta Records

Rarely so proud as with this domestic release – Austria! Unbelievable ingenious songwriting, deep sad, slow, death-doom riffs, paired with vocal as well as growling vocals perfectly completes the concept of the debut album. I am a fan since the first minute and hope to hear much more from them. In the meantime I enjoy each track as often as possible!
~ Silvi Pearl (Doomed & Stoned, Electric Fire Records)

IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW – SECOND SKIN
Hard Rock, Proto-Metal, Stoner, Garage Prog, Psych
Toronto, Canada
Pajama Party / Seeing Red Records

IAN BLURTON has had a long history producing bands (Cauldron, Blood Ceremony), and playing in a variety of indie projects based in Toronto, including the hard rockin’ C’mon in 2004-10. Judging from his smokin’ solo debut Signals Through the Flames (2019), he still has a bag full of great riffs. His vocals sound remarkably like Trevor William Church of Haunt with a bit of Chris Black from High Spirits/Dawnbringer. Of course it’s likely the other way around, since Blurton has been kicking around since the 80s. Morphing into IAN BLURTON’S FUTURE NOW, Second Skin expands on his roots of garage psych, proto-metal, Southern rock with NWOBHM and even some mellotron-driven prog. He somehow got his hands on the Rolling Stones Mobile studio and an enviable collection of vintage gear, some that belonged to Randy Bachman and Neil Young, and it sounds fantastic. The twin guitar leads and no-nonsense melodic vocals have kept me interested for many repeat listens this summer. While I need to dig for some older C’mon albums, this sounds like the best thing he’s done so far.
~ Tony Van Dorston (Fast n Bulbous)

JASPER – 2022 EP
Rock, Stoner, Alternative, Psych, Noise
Tours, France
Self-released

Pretty tasty alternative stoner, imploring influences from noise, psych and even some worldly or tribal touches. The result is a product of, for me, unknown giants, for whom music is the oxygen they need. The music is what gives them their kicks, their much-needed adrenaline and the reason their heart keeps beating the right kind of tempo. Opener Meet It, very slowly builds up to a punky, garage kind of stoner rock explosion before gently sliding into a percussion driven middle part and then erupting again. A proper introduction to what JASPER is all about; lots of percussion, lots of punk energy, kicking the trashcan momentum, and with so many layers and extra dimensions, it does not give off the air of being primitive or primal, there’s control, there’s stamina, JASPER can get every job done.
~ Joop Konraad (Stoner HiVe)

MOTORPSYCHO – ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS
Progressive Rock, Post Rock, Psych Rock
Trondheim, Norway
Stickman Records

Back as a trio, MOTORPSYCHO is ready to reveal all the magic of the Skottbu forests and the power of nature in an album that is sometimes contemplative, sometimes powerful, but always extremely subtle. The band seems to take a new step that brings us closer to progressive rock, or post-rock (listening to the hypnotic evolution of the music during the 22 minutes of Chariot Of The Sun, I was thinking of the SLINT’s Spiderland). The Ancient Astronauts fly their spacecraft in an atmosphere where the rains are light and the storms are tumultuous. Fly away with MOTORPSYCHO: this trip to a new height of creativity cannot be refused!
~ Thierry ‘Pumpkin-T’ Francois (Metal Intégral)

While I’d agree with the band’s assessment that Ancient Astronauts is “an explorative album without a whole lot of choruses,” it’s not as ambitious as recent albums, and that’s fine by me. A relatively short (4 tracks in 43 minutes) interlude is perfect right now, in order to avoid double album fatigue. We have the driving prog rock of “The Ladder,” that brings to mind Rush’s “Cygnus X-1: Book 1 – The Voyage’” the dreamy ambient kosmische (think Cluster) of the barely two minute “The Flower of Awareness,” and the epic prog jam of “Mona Lisa/Azrael” which was performed live a few times last year. It’s easy to take MOTORPSYCHO’s musical accomplishments for granted when there’s so much of it, but the final seven minutes (I presume the “Azrael” angel of death section) is mighty impressive, with the band engaging in a fiery improvised jam that recalls the best parts of King Crimson and The Mars Volta. Topping that is the 22:22 instrumental ambient/space rock epic “Chariot Of The Sun – To Phaeton On The Occasion Of Sunrise (Theme From An Imagined Movie).” Both were written for a live dance performance and a related film, which might attract some new converts who are more impressed by their connections to art forms like dance, theatre and film, than their mastery of psychedelic and progressive rock. The more who join the Psychonaut party, the merrier.
~ Tony Van Dorston (Fast n Bulbous)

MUD SPENCER – IN MUD WE TRUST
Heavy Psych, Stoner Psych
West Java, Indonesia
Argonauta Records

Who the hell is MUD SPENCER? Well, he’s Sergio Garcia, and he’s a multi-instrumentalist who has begun making mind-bending sound waves in the heavy underground. In Mud We Trust is a glorious and trippy Heavy Psych EP, coming off the heels of the full-length Fuzz Soup he dropped earlier this year. This is perfect jam-band-like music to space out and smoke to.
~ Nick Pipitone (The Third Eye, Monster Riff)

PARISH – PARISH
Seventies Hardrock, Epic Doom, Proto Metal
London, UK
Crypt Of The Wizard

After their first demo in 2019 and the EP released the following year, PARISH have now recorded their first longplayer and thus delivered one of the albums of the year for me. The trio from England has an uncanny feeling for melodies that stick in your head without sounding pop. Their Proto Metal sounds so authentically like the seventies, sounds so casual and stress-free from the speakers and the gentle vocals nestle wonderfully around the songs. It’s very difficult for me to pick a track out of the 45 minutes, because this homogeneous work is simply terrific and full of fantastic melodies to hum along to.
~ Tom Schmahl (Rock Circuz)

PLANET OF THE 8S & DUNEEATER – TURNED TO STONE CHAPTER 5
Desert, Stoner Rock
Melbourne Australia
Ripple Music

Ripple Music continues to be on fire with its Turned To Stone series. Volume 5 pairs two of the most interesting and exciting Australian stoner bands, PLANET OF THE 8S and DUNEEATER. This split is just pure fire. Two song of the year candidates are on here; one from each band (Gravity from POT8 and Twin Voyager from Duneeater). This needs to be experienced at maximum volume. SUPERSONIC SOUNDS OF ROCKET POWER!!!
~ Rich Piva (Musipedia of Metal, FuzzDoomRip)

The Australian stoner rock scene is in the middle of a golden era right now and when two of the best bands from the current crop come together for a split release, on arguably the best label for this kind of stuff in Ripple Music, you know it’s going to be a winner. And it is. The only thing that sucks about this is that we now have to wait a little longer for new full lengths from PLANET OF THE 8S and DUNEEATER. Hopefully not as long as we think…
~ Jonny Pirie (Hour of the Riff)

SNAKES DON’T BELONG IN ALASKA – INTERSTELLIC PSYCHEDELIC
Heavy Psych, Space Rock, Stoner Rock
Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Catacomb Family Records

SNAKES DON’T BELONG IN ALASKA is a strange band name, and their new album is even weirder. These Heavy Psych freaks from the UK combine a huge melting pot of genres and styles for a tasty experimental sound. The band originally started in 2015 as a metal act, actually, but they’ve since traveled into deep space.
~ Nick Pipitone (The Third Eye, Monster Riff)

STONE NOMADS – FIELDS OF DOOM
Doom, Sludge Metal, Stoner Metal
Houston, Texas
Gravitoyd Heavy Music

With grooves that range from low and slow to strident and thrash-like STONE NOMADS are the real deal, these guys are no fresh faced newbies trying to find their way in the scene and learning the ropes along the way, these guys have paid their dues and the sound they make together is a fully formed one that will have listeners believing they are listening to a band who have been together from school rather than just one year.
~ Frazer Jones (Desert Psychlist)

THUNDERMOTHER – BLACK AND GOLD
Heavy Metal, Hard Rock
Sweden
AFM Records

These ladies know exactly how to deliver a fantastic album. Swedish heavy metal hard rock has never disappoints. Every riff, every solo and every powerful voice motivates me to dance from second one.
~ Silvi Pearl (Doomed & Stoned, Electric Fire Records)

And a special thanks goes out to Doktor420 for the cover image…

Can you hear all that 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); Ben Bellum (The Greatest Thing You’ve Never Heard); Bill Goodman (The Evil Engineer); Billy Goate (Doomed & Stoned); Bob “Mr. Weird Beard” Baker (More Fuzz Podcast); Bobby Rayfield (Monuments In Ruin); 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); Gravitoyd HM (Gravitoyd Heavy Music); 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); JC Cansdale-Cook (The MotorFuzzin’ Ibex); Jim Thompson (Heavy in the Hills); JJ “HP Taskmaster” Koczan (The Obelisk); John Gist, (Vegas Rock Revolution / The Doomed & Stoned Show); Jonny Pirie (Hour of the Riff); Joop Konraad (Stoner HiVe); Ken Elliott (Heavy Planet);  Kyle SB / Shasta Beast (Stoner HiVe); 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); Martin Doomed Desbois (Le Mellow Man, Metal Alliance Magazine) 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);  Mr Stone (More Fuzz); Nick Pipitone (The Third Eye, Monster Riff);Pat Schober(Monster Riff); Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker (The Ripple Effect);  ‘Papa’ Paul Rote (Doomed & Stoned); Reek of STOOM (Doomed&Stoned, Stoner HiVe); Remi VL (Remi Post Too Many Links); Rich Piva (Musipedia of Metal, FuzzDoomRip); Roberto Lucas (Denpa Fuzz); Roberto Fuentes (La Habitación 235); Robert Pannell (Doom Loom); Rod Reinhardt (Captain Beyond Zen); Roman Tamayo (Doomed & Stoned); Ryan Foster (Slightly Fuzzed) ; Silvi Pearl (Doomed & Stoned, Electric Fire Records); 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 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.

Here we are, you and me? At the very bottom? Well, why not leave a comment about your favorite album on the list?