Sure, I published my list of Favorite albums on Stoner HiVe, where it sat as a simple list. With a staggering 165 albums in Alphabetical order below the Top 20. And I am dead sure I forgot to add a few and I am equally sure I will be discovering more records from 2023 that deserve a spot on that list. It can never be complete it seems. For the Doom Charts, I’ve added Five more, because they should be singled out and given more attention, for whatever reason… The main reason of course my adoration for those heavy tunes! And yes, I’ve added pieces of the reviews already written for Stoner HiVe or all new blurbs… Hope you find your new favorite album…
And a massive amount of thanks to all the Doom Charts Contributors, for everything they’ve done and do! To the PR companies for spreading the good word on all that we love and want to scream and rant about. To all the record companies for putting that thing out on physical form for us to cherish! And to all those brilliant artists, musicians and bands for creating that heavy music fuel! I for one cannot live without it! So, thank you all so much!
25. WIJ – Prestwór
(Piranha Music)
Released on December 15th, which means it might lose a lot of attention due to all the glances back on the albums that came out throughout the year and of course everybody’s preparations for the holiday season. But the new album by Polish Wij needs to be heard by one and all. Nine tracks of thundering metal with enough room to breathe and to let the high pitched banshee vocalist shine. But that thundering metal actually shrouds this proto feeling and doom atmosphere. Wij is raw, its emotional and has songs that invite the crowd to go absolutely insane, Oko being the prime example here. Prestwór is a monster that stomps on the terra and runs you over! In a good way!
24. MüuT – . . . Make Me Do It
(Self-released)
When you have a song called Fight the Müutonegro, you will immediately evoke memories partying like hell with the Turbonegro crazies. And you will immediately show your colors and have the people waiting for that death punk, Turbo ‘n roll kind of music. And the Polish foursome MüuT does not disappoint! Founded on the eve of 2020, the quartet gives you a debut album called … Made Me Do It and that gives you ten tracks that always carry that punk flag high above whatever the song underneath spells out. Second track Graso has some metal, thrash, and speedrock influences and vocals tearing you a new hole somewhere. And that’s after opener Another Bill To Pay charged the field with some riveting speedy stoner and roll. And if you think, what the hell, this Polish band is singing in Spanish?! That’s correct, the main vocalist and bassplayer Vlad Guzmán is from Mexico. Not every track is in Spanish though and those shared vocal lines with the rest of the band just add extra flavour to an already damn fierce adrenaline kicker. That second guitar doing stonerrock lines underneath, man, what a second track! And then we come to Fight the Müutonegro! More bombastic, fantastic punk ‘n roll! And you can just hear the entire venue screaming along. This can’t get any better you think… But then there’s Braindead, with once again that passionate punk adagio, but also some hardcore, metal and thrash. A majestic build up, leading up to that un, dos, tres explosion! And then doubling that explosion up with an speed atombomb attack, bringing in that damn funky chorus and bringing it back down to the build up, and going around in circles, circling in the circle pit. We’re not even half way through the album, but these four bring only good stuff and show us once again, that punk can come in many forms. And MüuT can do them all!
23. Witch Ripper – The Flight After The Fall
(Magnetic Eye Records)
The sludge and stoner that was perhaps more prevalent on those early releases and their transformation into much more prog and metal, is stunning and huge, huge on an epic scale. Adventurous from start to finish, much will and can be said about the closing almost seventeen-minute-long battleship track Everlasting in Retrograde Parts 1 & 2. It condenses, unpacks, launches and explodes everything they did before they got to this final track and then, when what we assume is the second part commences, decide to add this beautiful, highly atmospheric, slow gliding middle part that is minutely developed into what turns out Everlasting in Retrograde seems to be all about and perhaps Witch Ripper even more in the future. The beauty and the beast, the belle and the brute, finding the right dance, that cyclone waltz that merges all of the different elements into one natural whole and awe inspiring perfect storm.
22. Warp – Bound by Gravity
(Nasoni Records)
The WARP three share vocal duties and by doing so give their sophomore Bound By Gravity so much depth and identity, it feels at certain moments that you are listening to a completely different record. But then there’s always some punk energy, psychedelic touch or proto metal take to bring it all together again. For that is perhaps the most alluring aspect of it all, that even though there is a lot of harshness and punk energy, there is also an intense groove going on or a cosmic escape towards the void. On Bound By Gravity, it seems WARP has found a work around and used the heavy bogged down sounds to propel themselves skywards!
21. Sonic Moon – Return Without Any Memory
(Olde Magick Records)
A slow burning, grunge and fuzz toned doom trucker. Which only speeds up measurably on a few tracks. Especially on that third track, Give It Time, the driving motion gives it a powerful, forward pushing groove. But a lot of the other tracks do much more haze rocking, making the dance turn into dreams and hallucinations. Perfectly named opener The Waters already had it going on, the entire composition, rhythm, and guitar lines, feeling like a rippling of open water, causing reverie and a lightheaded trance, even though there is a doom trod, it still feels so weightless. A similar vibe is felt when fourth track Through The Snow meanders through your mind, frozen snapshots of long-lost adventures will drowsily dance around you and have your recalling all those emotions once again. And every single track on the album does this, although usually in a heavier, almost sludgier tone setting. And then there’s closing track Hear Me Now, that on some level seems to recap everything that came before and actually everything Sonic Moon might be about. Or at least on this album. Cause that one track goes through all these different settings, environments, and atmospheres, always heavy and always psychedelic. And those almost eight minutes of Hear Me Now never goes off into one direction or an explosive pay-off, yet manages to deliver you acquiescence with calm and a resolute take on heavy psych. And that heavy psych take is entirely Sonic Moon and something we hope they take with them and remember when they return to the studio, when it’s time for them to record their next album…
20. Queens of The Stone Age – In Times New Roman…
(Matador)
The album to finish off a hellish period for the man behind it all. The album to finish off a trilogy of albums and hopefully will see the sound go into a different direction after this. But the songwriting, man, it’s beautiful. And shall we mention how tight they are live at the moment? I’ve been blessed to see this animal in every incarnation of members and every time there’s a different kind of vibe and edge to it. This time it’s so tight, almost machinal. Yet, so appreciative of the moments they have on stage. Or so it seems… Which perhaps also shines through on the album. Cause even though lyrics wise it might be one of the harshest albums so far, you can still feel with every lyric spit, that this means it has now been dealt with. Time to move on… On to a new chapter… Let’s see what font they use next time…
19. Acid Magus – Hope Is Heavy
(Mongrel Records)
Acid Magus captured me fast and hard! Thanks to the Caligulater track first, but thanks to all the rest completely. That classic drum ‘n bass rhythm that’s part of Caligulater will be part of me forever, but those other tracks are all Cathedrals in their own right. Hope Is Heavy has so much to offer, doom atmospheres, grandiose gestures and entire universes of expansiveness and psychedelic swirls. Dark and light encapsulated by so many different aspects, they are wizards in their own right!
18. Hibernaut – Ingress
(Self-released)
The doom is huge on Hibernaut’s Ingress album. Ominous and marauding, stampeding like the horses of the apocalypse towards a crushing fall of the heavens. Metal, with sludge and stoner touches that has this huge driving edge to it. Always moving forward, often at a lightning fast pace, but always like a hammer strike from the Gods. And it demands your eardrums as a sacrifice, cause it demands to played at full volume!
17. Phe – Nothing Else Is Real
(Self-released)
The three hail from Helmond and yes I have a personal connection to the band, but I can still without any qualms state they’ve got something going on. On Nothing Else Is Real I hear definite growth for the three that are Phe. Glooming Dawn from 2020 has its merits, but the new five track has everything. A stoner trucking opening track called Mirror The Ghost, a slower stonerized psychedelic boogie called Saviour, with progressive meandering and a Pink Floyd touch. A vocalist that dares, even if its still minuscule, to try a few different things. And even a few minor vocal harmony touches, done by himself. That brooding and moody atmosphere we know from Glooming Dawn is always present on whatever Phe does is, but instead of becoming it something to deal with, it’s now delivered to live with and inhabit. The Age Of The Misunderstood perhaps being the best example of this. And with a first live gig of 2024 set on Friday 26th in De Grote Broek, in Nijmegen, together with Komatsu, and hopefully more gigs to come, more growth will happen as natural as can be… Can’t wait to hear where the boys will take things next…
16. Howling Giant – Glass Future
(Magnetic Eye Records)
Getting bigger, better and bolder, the new album aims for a huge progressive future. There shall be no shattering of dreams here, we concur with everyone claiming this album to be a new step in the band’s progression. One that sets them on the same kind of pedestal as King Buffalo and Elder. And where those two bands take a more progressive or psychedelic approach respectively, these guys touch it all up with metal and something that sounds like pure punk determination. Indeed, there’s energy here, a sonic kinetics that crackles and writes its own saga underneath the poetic fantasies recited, the tales told and the fables issued as a warning… For whatever the future might bring, this band will be there, with riffs a plenty and songs the more…
15. The Silver Linings – Pink Fish
(Spinda Records)
Let’s dive head first into the sonically rich waters and float around in the warm bath that is The Silver Linings. Or as our fellow Doom Charts Contributor Ioannis Valiakos started his blurb on the Spinda Records bandcamp page for this album: “Mind blowing at times, and calming at others…” So very very true. There are so many wonderful moments where you just seem to drift along the psychedelic and space current, after which a more garage and kraut approach to that amazing heady music takes over. But both aspects all have this stress reducing effect. Relaxation one moment and the perfect amount of stimuli the next to get the good and positive energy flowing. This is music for a sensory overload tank, for enhancing every sensation and positive emotion you can possibly feel. Wild compositions exchanging the spotlight with impeccable instrumentation, it’s all there and then some. Get your bathing suit on, dive head first in these cool and refreshing waters and swim around with Pink Fish!
14. Iron Jinn – Iron Jinn
(Stickman Records)
I was extremely honored to be present for the rehearsals of the Alain Johannes and Iron Jinn tour. And seeing the result a few months later in Leiden was stunning. Iron Jinn opened the ball that night and the steamy and feverish atmosphere that soon took hold was mind blowing. They only managed to capture a tiny bit what they do live and how they drag you away, inspire you and make you dream on their debut album. Made up from members of amazing bands like Death Alley, Shaking Godspeed and Birth of Joy the interplay between Wout Kemkens and Oeds Beydals take the tracks to soaring heights. The two know how to will the energy around you into a heaving and almost threatening force, guitars that can sound as agitated as coiled up snake about to strike. Drawling vocals, heartfelt screams and lush structures paint you muggy landscapes and drape you under a steamy blanket. They talked about having produced an album that danced on the edge of reality, fantasy and dreams. An apt description, especially if they meant for it to lead you into a fever ridden delirium…
13. Earth Altar / Sun Below – InterTerra Solis
(Black Throne Productions)
2023 has been a great year for splits and collaborative albums, and the InterTerra Solis split by Earth Altar and Sun Below is one of those special ones. One side taking you higher and at the same time turning the cosmic sized doom nod into an earthy rocker, that sounds as proto as it sound proggy; and did we mention earthy? While the other lift the compositions even higher, yet turns as much into a journey inward as it does outwards. Together, the two sides, turn this into a forty-minute adventure that you can keep experiencing for the rest of time. For even though the music is in place, you will be out of it in no time and undergoing all sorts of weird escapades somewhere between the sun and the earth…
12. Apex Ten – Aashray
(Self-released)
I always feel a pain in my heart when the date for Desertfest Antwerp is announced, cause it’s usually during a weekend that’s filled with family obligations. This year, the pain was intensified when we learned Apex Ten was going to play there. Cause their new Aashray album has been on intense rotation over here. Born out of long form jams, the seven tracks offer your this perfect tour de force of space rock. Complimented by psychedelic riffage, kraut rock rhythms and all extremely or entirely fuzzed, Aashray turns the cosmic into something bigger than the universe. And yet, when enveloped by all the sounds, the myriad of conversations you will have with the cosmos turns this album into a safe haven, a perfect place to hide away and feel protected…
11. Royal Thunder – Rebuilding The Mountain
(Spinefarm Records)
It’s their fourth official full-sized album and it’s a way for them to not only rebuild the band but rebuild their life as well. All three of them suffered from seeing their life spiral out of control and fall apart, in their own various ways. But the three have found each other and what they can do together again, and these forty minutes of pristine heavy rock are a testament to that fact. Royal Thunder means earthshattering power, lightning strikes of wild energy and a pure untamable life force. But it also means grace, elegance, and poise. And the way the three manage to use all these aspects in a perfectly balanced way, is what makes Royal Thunder so very special. That, and of course that amazing voice of Mlny Parsonz. A throat grabbing, raw, bluesy, electrifying, and soulful voice that manages to convey whatever emotion it wants as well as making concrete walls extend outwards with pure force.
10. Black Rainbows – Superskull
(Heavy Psych Sounds)
They’re known for a majestic drive, and masterful groove and a high energy ride through the heavy rock genre! The cosmic ride! They’re superheroes in their own right! Superheroes of fuzz! On many levels a super continuation of everything they did before; and on every level a perfection of that super sound you love them to bring… And on the 24th of February I will get to see them live again at Into The Void Festival in the Effenaar, in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Hooray for me!
9. King Potenaz – Goat Riders
(Argonauta Records)
Third title track Goat Riders is the one that sprinkles golden desert dust over the entire record. Seven minutes that condenses all the album does, you have forward stoner rock riff motion that sounds like it was recorded at a generator party and the end part is this slow doom march, and all of it sounds so incredibly fuzzy, filthy and furious that it takes a few spins before you can continue on with the rest of the album. But when you finally do so, you are treated to a quietly trickling, highly atmospheric Cosmic Voyager which is followed by spacious, slow moving, and hazy doom rocker called Moriendoom that almost seems to spin out of control at the end. Dancing Plague ends the album in brilliant form. And those final minutes of that final track Dancing Plague, after that psychedelic meandering middle part, comes that stoner riffing, the buildup and then the final stretch of pure riff glory, I would have been very happy if it would just have continued for another hour. But all good things must come to an end. And sadly, things this good always end to soon…
8. Omega Sun – Roadkill
(No Profit Recordings)
The six tracks on the new Roadkill album are pure, unadulterated, atavistic stonerrock, sundried guitar tones and fuzzed out doom. This will take you back to the days of the legends and those parties smack dab in the middle of Palm Desert. And even though, for the most part, the rhythms and the overall speed is slower than that of Kyuss, the psychedelic edge we know from that legendary band is there and so is the voice of bassist and vocalist Igor Kukanja. Indeed, the vocals will remind you of John Garcia from time to time, or quite a lot of times. So, yes, there are definite sound offs to Kyuss, but that’s never a bad thing and in the case of Omega Sun, it is something that just comes naturally.
7. Dozer – Drifting In The Endless Void
(Blues Funeral Recordings)
On many levels a landmark album and on many levels a dangerous release. Cause what does this mean for the other band half of the members are in? Cause the past years we could enjoy that signature circling, stomping and grooving guitar sound that the main axe slinger produces while he rocked out with a different quartet called Greenleaf. And after eight records with that band, you could easily have forgotten that Greenleaf once started as a side-project. Because the guitarist wanted to explore more seventies rock touches and because the members of that other band did not want to tour as much anymore. Some of them wanted to finish their education or something weird like that. So, after that final 2008 album, things went quiet around the band. A gig here or there, a few more a few years later. And then, back in April, it was there, suddenly, coming in out of the void. Filled with more of that sultry and sliding stoner rock, that you might have gotten accustomed to from that other band, but now, a bit rougher, edgier and wrapped in barbed wire. Biggest difference of course is the vocalist, who is able to touch that raw and intense nerve in a different way. Although, he does manage to do a bit of that drawling sound you know so well from the other vocalist on a few moments as well. Which makes the new album a complementary and vortex like whirlpool of influences and memories… One that can drown you just as easily as set you adrift…
6. Santo Rostro – Después No Habrá Nada
(Discos Macarras Records / LaRubiaProducciones / Spinda Records)
Even though that sensational opening track Telarañas and following Carcasa Digital, who complement each other, will undoubtedly wow every part of your being with its psychedelic doom of the highest order and the lowest tones, the progressive sludge and the wild, whirl winding atmospheres. Third track Aire, truly winds its progressive, sludgy maelstrom sound all around you and when that middle eastern motif hits, you will lift off, you will fly, you will soar, you will see things that are below, behind and beyond. Mystical and almost transcendental, the almost six minutes of Aire will put you in a different state of mind, culminating in what feels like a supernatural merry go round gone berserk. It’s the perfect example of the nature of their psychedelic rock, a continuously spinning, almost polymorphing every sound into one another. Indeed, the three called Santo Rostro from Jaén, Spain are doing magic.
5. Domkraft – Sonic Moons
(Magnetic Eye Records)
Their psychedelic doom, their highly fuzzed out take on it, with sludge tones and kraut hypnotism has always been a band that knew how to catch a groove and follow the flow. And where their earlier album perhaps started off a bit slower, a bit more open spaced, the new one makes its intentions clear from the start. The opening track, with its ominous riff, soon even denser and darker, before it’s allowed to open up, turns more galactic as we continue on and the vocals wind itself along the echoing guitar. And that cosmic edge, turns it all into something even more hypnotic than we are used to. Hypnotic, addictive and obliterating, this is the new galactic drug of choice for every heavy rock junkie…
4. Fire Down Below – Low Desert Surf Club
(Ripple Music)
Well, they make their destination obviously clear with the second track of their new album. But you’re already getting a nice tan, you already feel the warm wind and the sun burn, yes you already feel like you are in California, USA from the first opening seconds of opening track Cocaine Hippo. How does a Belgian band from the lovely, but usually grey and drizzling city of Ghent, sound so much like their American counterparts? As if they were born in the American desert, moved to the Californian seaside and became surf dudes as well as desert punks…
3. REZN & Vinnum Sabbathi – Silent Future
(Blues Funeral Recordings)
This expansive and cinematic album is a collaboration between two bands that both deliver their absolute forte on every of the seven tracks. But these seven need to be digested in one sitting; for this is one grand spacious and wild adventure. Controlled, powerful chaos, like a perfect swirling Taoistic ritual. The two bands manage to weave an intricate and extremely detailed psychedelic tapestry that feels like you are on a majestic journey into the outer reaches of everything. Art in every sense of the word.
2. Acid King – Beyond Vision
(Blues Funeral Recordings)
A band that has been putting out music since 1994 and was founded a year before that. And is still fronted by the same Queen. A band that delivered amazing stoner, metal and doom albums, that all meandered through the psychedelic landscape. High dependable and always delivering the good stuff. But with this new album, they go beyond all that. All those boundary markers from before are ripped out of the soil and not just moved but thrown into the endless void. It’s a sonic trip that tries to make you envision interplanetary existence as well as the fact that linear life does not exist. Your path will swerve every which way but straight. And that is exactly how the music comes across, as an extremely dense, yet meandering path through the wasteland of existence. The moments of release, when inhibitions are elegantly stripped away and euphoria is on the brink of exploding, feels as much as those tab induced experiences, where you were an intrepid inner space wanderer, as music can possibly attain. But as we mentioned, there is light and vision, but also darker recesses that are more dangerous, thanks to that dense and doom approach. And then when it all ends, that final track, if there’s ever been a song in the stoner doom genre that represents that green light, that sense of hope and belief, that there can be a better future, that the journey to the unknown destination, might be fruitful, this is it. Heavily inspired by many space exploration movies and ideas, and the fact that the band makes it sound as big as the universe and thought provoking about human inner workings, is beyond… Many albums have felt like a small and logical step for Acid King, but this is a giant leap for the Queen…
1. Ruff Majik – Elektrik Ram
(Mongrel Records)
We wrote a lengthy piece on Stoner HiVe about our very favorite record of 2023… But it comes down to something highly personal, I guess. We already stated that there are certain albums that immediately feel part of my every fiber due to a certain manic edge it might have. And Elektrik Ram has all of it. The frantic adhd-rock shoots every which way and will course through your veins within seconds… Dealing with a lengthy fight vocalist Johni Holiday had addiction, anxiety-disorder, PTSS and perhaps more, Elektrik Ram is that most dangerous of records for a recovering junkie. Cause even if it deals with a heavy period and weighty subject, the album is lighthearted, fun and the perfect battering ram for a wild weekend you will never remember… Very dangerous indeed…
Doom Charts 