Crater - Degenerate (2023)

Chinese doom/sludge heavy enough to make your eyeballs burst and your teeth rattle out of your skull. All the warmth and moisture you normally get from standard doom riffs have been sucked out and the fuzz sandblasted away to leave an arid musical wasteland of slow, hateful tempos. Salvation does lie within Degenerate  as there is a slight stoner element that resonates within the tide of toxic sludge dissonance that gives the album a remarkably accessible feel to it, but generally, the Eyehategod influenced doom leaves a debilitating sense of hopelesness and nausea for which there is no known antidote.

VISION DEPRIVED ~ Self Elevating, Deep Inside The Void (2023)

 

Unsettling Italian death metal that spits and snarls in your face in an unrelenting, frenzied attack. The riffs just keep coming, charged with adrenaline, like a serial killer stalking his next kill. Self Elevating, Deep Inside The Void, hurtles from one toxic tempo to another with crust armoured grind vying with mid paced crunch in a withering dance of ferocious extremity.

WHORE OF BETHLEHEM - Ritual of Homicide (2023)

Tumultuous Texan death metal, bathed in a hue of snarling black anger and macerated with bludgeoning brutality. With skin flaying ferocity mixed with a pummelling rhythm section, Whore Of Bethlehem drags you into a tortured world of hurt.

VOLCANA ~ Goddess of Flame (2017)

Originally released in 2017, Goddess Of The Flame, by U.S band Volcana has been given the vinyl treatment by Glory Or Death Records. Red blooded, gritty riffs and twin guitar leads entwined into vicious barbs, career from one genre to the next, often within the same track. The main ingredient resonates with a Thin Lizzy'ish metal/rock sound but Goddess Of The Flame also leaves an aftertaste of doom and stoner as well as the occasional thrash crunch. 

DEATHRATTLE PODCAST ~ Dirty Dozen February 2023

The twelve albums  I contributed to the Doom Charts as my 'best of' list. As usual the 'Dirtry Dozen was mainly dominated by doom and death metal but this month had more of an influx of stoner albums and even a couple of hard/heavy rock releases. The Filth Pit also provided me with one of my albums of the month 'Repulsie Post Mortem by Putrid

BONE WEAPON - Thrive Or Starve

"Death/doom that never deviates from its sole purpose of asphyxiation by claustrophobic filth"~ Deathrattle Podcast

https://transylvaniantapes.bandcamp.com/album/bone-weapon-thrive-or-starve

WARP - Bound By Gravity (#11 Feb Doom Charts)

"Colossal  stoner/doom aided by a fantastic mix that swells the sound like a dying sun. Deep, sonorous riffs are lacerated by crystalline licks." ~ Deathrattle Podcast

https://warptlv.bandcamp.com/album/bound-by-gravity

TRAMALIZER - Fumes Of Funeral Pyres

"There's no room to breathe with this rabid slice of Finnish death metal. Devastating death metal filled with churning riffs and wailing leadwork thats sounds like a spoiled brat clinging to its mothers skirt tails."~ Deathrattle Podcast

https://tramalizer.bandcamp.com/album/fumes-of-funeral-pyres

PÉ ROTO - Tormento

"Destructive Portuguese doom/sludge with added dissonance to the riffs for maximum aural distress. Tormento is an album swollen with bloat, (very) slowly decomposing as you listen to a heaving groove struggling under its own obese weight. The sludge laden depth of these songs are boundless in their extremity, remorseless in their depravity, colossal shambling structures of doom."~ Deathrattle Podcast

https://pe-roto.bandcamp.com/album/tormento

DRUG MOTHER - Rise Witch (#32 Feb Doom Charts)

"We're a down tempo'd stoner rock band from Newcastle Australia."

https://drugmotherband.bandcamp.com/album/rise-witch

STREET TOMBS - Reclusive Decay

"Reclusive Decay" features six tracks of thrashing Death Metal / Punk freshly ripped from the grave

https://carbonizedrecords.bandcamp.com/album/reclusive-decay

OLD MINE UNIVERSE - This Vast Array (#22 Feb Doom Charts)

"This is a fantastic album from a band with hard rock in its heart and stoner blues in its soul." ~ Deathrattle Podcast

https://oldmineuniverse.bandcamp.com/album/this-vast-array

JUST BEFORE DAWN - Battle Sight Zeroing

"Mid Tempo destruction is our middle name!"

https://justbeforedawn1.bandcamp.com/album/battle-sight-zeroing

PUTRED - Repulsie Post - Mortem

"Death Metal band from Transylvania, Romania."

https://putred.bandcamp.com/album/repulsie-post-mortem

ATOMWINTER - Sakrilege

"It's the same crusty doom/death grisliness as previous releases but this time it's all about the death metal riff. Brutality and filth still prevails but Sakrileg is the fastest album the band has yet written despite being weighed down with pustules and scabs.

This album will make even the leprous headbang. " ~ Deathrattle Podcast

https://atomwinter.bandcamp.com/album/sakrileg-2

ETA LUX - High And Low (#7 Feb Doom Charts)

"High And Low, the third full-length album from these four-piece, North German sandstorm riders, is an absolute treat for longing craving stoner-rock souls from back then as well as today!" ~ Sunday's Heavy Tunes

https://eta-lux.bandcamp.com/album/high-and-low

BLACKWULF - Thieves And Liars (#9 Feb Doom Charts)

"I don’t always need crazy experimentation or mold breaking on all my records; sometimes I just want straight ahead heaviness with riffs for days, killer guitar work, and just a kick ass rock swagger that oozes with its pores, like what we get from Thieves and Liars. You get all of that plus their greatest song yet, Psychonaut Edge Of Light, making this the band’s best album till date." ~ Musipedia Of Metal

https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/thieves-and-liars

ISOLE ~ Anesidora (2023)

The dual harsh and clean (mainly clean) vocals sets the tone for Isole's new album Anesidora an album that spans the full range of emotions dragging the listener from the depths of despair one moment to a rapturous sense of elation the next. It's like attending a wake yet leaving with a smile on your face. Isole doesn't need fuzz or effects to conjure an epic, aural funeral. Instead, this doom ceremony is sanctified by heavy, metallic crunchy guitars punctuated with solo's that sound like the anguished crying of a grieving widow.

Bereavement has never been this glorious.

https://hammerheartstore.com/collections/vendors?q=Isole

DIVINIST ~ Divinist (2023)

Ominous, sludgy doom seething with evil intent. Bleak, black and sullen, the surprisingly sumptuous sound adds multitudes of layers, pitted with pained, acidic guitar leads, to the numbing, hypnotic dissonance taking root into your skull. Painfully slow, not even the added death metal element breaks Divinist from its lumbering stride of behemothic proportions. Dark, necromantic spells are cast from the first track and the feeling of oppressive malevolence leaves goosebumps on the nape of your neck long after the final track 'Curse' has ended.