2026 First Half Recap

In previous years my lack of posts was due to being too busy writing for other, more legitamate sites. That's not the case this year. I've been listening back through all the CDs that I own in alphabetical order by artist. And some records obviously. This has left me with less time for new releases. I haven't been completely isolating myself from 2026 though. Here are a bunch of new releases that I feel obligated to say good things about. But only a few good things. I'm in the middle of a Mastodon marathon right now and I'm anxious to get back to it. Enjoy!

Blackwater Holylight - 'Not Here, Not Gone': I admit it took me a few spins to warm up to this. My expectations were off and I had to see the album for what it was. Beautiful. January album of the month for sure. Of note: new Pelican EP and new Wild Fuzz Trip.

Weedpecker - 'V': Do you like trippin' on tunes? Isolate yourself with this album and you'll go places. Especially if you like bands like Elder. Textured psychedelic proggy stoner doom. Nothing stood out more in February. Of note: the new Belzebong and Axe Dragger's debut need a revisit.

Serpent Worship - 'So Mote It Be': To borrow from their Bandcamp page this "heavy and hypnotic" release takes its time across four tracks of experimental doom with samples from the late King Cobra JFS serving as vocals. It's the only March album I went back to again and again. Of note: Witchcraft EP, new Filth is Eternal, and I need more time with 'Excavations' by Supercontinent.

Corrosion of Conformity - 'Good God Baad Man': Now we're talkin'! This shit fucking rocks. Rocks and fucking rolls. Apparently Woody and Pepper can do just fine without Reed (R.I.P.) and Mike. Fantastically fine. There's one part that brings tears to my eyes just about every time but damn, if this isn't the most fun CoC album yet. A spiritual companion to 'America's Volume Dealer'. And potential album of the year.
April was a pretty good month to be honest. I'll recommend the Soft Sun and Ten East split, Angine de Poitrine (so much fun!), Truckfighters, WITCH (the African one), Witch Ripper, final Sepultura EP. A few others I need to revisit.

May was a damn fine month. Damn fine.
Lair of the Minotaur - 'I Hail I': Capital-M Metal. Makes me think of battle and spikes and headbanging while not being too serious. Rips though!
Bongtower - 'The Color of Pomegranates': Heavier and darker than Weedpecker but heavy doom prog nonetheless. Very cosmic at times. Just a massive album. I wish the documentary about it wasn't in Polish.
Gozu - 'Gozu VI': Stoner rock with some metal vibes, dynamicism, and more than enough fun. Fun is good.If you don't rock with Gozu yet. Get on board here.
Elder - 'Through Zero': Speaking of Elder, their new one is really good! Sounds like Elder! Well, modern Elder at least. I'm good with that. I need to listen to it more though. At the end of a proper Elder marathon. Elder always takes some time to sink in.
Monolord - 'Neverending': I'm still recommending these stoner doom titans but it's not my favourite of theirs. Need more listens for sure.

I've only got one album for June. 'Fantasia' by Slift. It's the only album you need. Right up there with my favourites of the year. This trio makes some powerful prog-doom, people. Epic doesn't even touch it. Texture and shade, darkness and light, gravity and weightlessness, explosive and genteel. The fact that they recorded it live with no overdubs or anything makes it that much more impressive. I liked 'Ummon' well enough (and missed 'Ilion' altogether somehow) but 'Fantasia' takes it up several notches! And it gets better with every listen!

I'll try and have more for July but I'm hitting the Megadeth, Metallica, and Monster Magnet sections of my collection soon and that's EXTENSIVE.

October 2025: Matt Recommends

October was a pretty good month (for music) if we're being honest. This is gonna be a spitfire of recommendations with little insight. Strap in!

Raphael Weinroth-Browne - Lifeblood: The month started off really well with the latest from this dynamic cellist. Lifeblood is a captivating and passionate affair that draws you in as if you weren't freely giving yourself over to it already. Excellent work, as always.



M.E.L.T. - Innervate/Obliterate: High-energy psych/indie/fuzz/stoner rock power trio. Very high energy. Best enjoyed very high.



Verona Florrist - Verona Florrist: Stoner doom trio from Toronto. Big powerful sound with nuance. Not afraid to "get into'er" and crush some skulls. FFO AAWKS.



Frayle - Heretics and Lullabies: Heavy doom rock with haunting melodies and ethereal vocals. The atmosphere fills the room in a similar way to Alice in Chains.



Biohazard - Divided We Fall: I've been a Biohazard fan for over 25 years and I was not disappointed by this return! First album in 12 years! (Not on Bandcamp.)



Soulfly - Chama: I'm a big Soulfly fan. My first ever tattoo was the Soulfly wings logo. They sound a lot different than 1998 but Max always rules! (Not on Bandcamp either.)



Cattlemass - Alpha 1128: Kick-ass fuckin' doom. Fuzzed-out and dripping with groove. Crank it! Crush something!



Hawklords - Faith: Yes, this is an offshoot of Hawkwind. And they sound like it. Always a trip with these lads!



The Acacia Strain - You Are Safe From God Here: I don't always go for deathcore. If you can even call this deathcore. It's pretty doomy. And angry.



Space Witch - Mountains of Neptune: Instrumental space doom masterpiece! It's been eight years since their last album. Well worth the wait. Safe travels, friends.



Like I said, it was a good month and I wanted to highlight as many as I could. Check out my October Playlist for more good tunes.

September 2025: Matt Recommends

What do we have for you this month, eh? Well, as usual, there's some psychrock to bliss out with. I've also brought something more powerful and something fuzzed out. Let's get into it.

Orions Belte - Pur Jus: I'm not too sure how I got turned on to this Norwegian psych trio. Some algorithm is likely. No matter. To parse their artist description, they're breezy, sometimes loud, and vibrant with groove. And that's why I like it! Feel-good tunage that puts your head in the clouds and makes the body sway. A song like "Milk Champagne" brings a vibe similar to Khruangbin. Never a bad thing. Orions Belte uses less vocals, though. That's cool with me, too.



Kungens Män - Resande i rockmusik: Slide to the east for this Swedish outfit. Similarly to Orions Belte, Resande i rockmusic is a blissed-out instrumental trip. Heavy on the repetition, sonically laced together in waves. There's a free-flowing groove that anchors the listener in a hypnotic sway. It's much warmer music than what's depicted on the album cover. And more psychedelic, of course. The four tracks average 11 minutes each. Just enough time to entrance you with varying intensities. Chill away the day.



Appalooza - The Emperor of Loss: Staying in Europe we have Appalooza from France. I love the cow skull imagery they carry across their artwork. Which is incredible. Between that and their sound you'd think they're from the American West. Sort of a desert feel. They do reference QOTSA in their bio. And Alice in Chains. Powerful desert rock with just a little melancholy and the muscle to overcome it. The highlight of the album for me would be "Tarantula". It's a complex track with with a killer fucking riff that they groove out on for a while at the end. It's a neck-snapper!



The Gray Goo - Cabin Fever Dreams: Now, Appalooza may look and sound like they're from Montana but The Gray Goo actually are. Cabin Fever Dreams takes the loose, groovy feel of psychrock (not too different than Orions Belte or Kungens Män) and infuses it with a sort of indie flair. Fans of King Gizzard and Thee Oh Sees know what I'm talking about. And more vocals. Perhaps some doom feel in there too. This album is a lot of fun. Lots of groove, fuzzy guitars, killer bass, cool riffs, atmosphere in spades without it feeling forced, just a natural thing. It feels good to the gray goo inside my skull and that's all that matters.



My September Playist is very all over the place. You've got the bands above but also bands like Biohazard. Enjoy and skip as you wish!

January 2023 Playlist

I've canned my weekly The Week That Was Wednesdays feature on Instagram for a bunch of reasons. (Previous posts @notglossyeh) But I still want to share what I've listened to. 

Just less frequently and less visibly. 

Anyway, here are the artists I listened to in January!

Full studio album runs of Fu Manchu, Acid King, Dead Meadow, Baroness, Electric Wizard, Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Royal Thunder, and Egypt.

A Weedian comp or two, some Lair of the Minotaur, a couple Wrong releases. I started a Black Rainbows run which I will return to when I'm done with Kylesa.

And the only new album that really got my attention was the debut from Daevar. They sound just like Windhand so I'm all in! Oh and Earthbong!

Van tunes consisted of uh, Megadeth, Beaver, some QOTSA...and others? It was a whole month. I can't remember! 

Until next month!

2021: My Favourites

The end of 2017 was bad. 2018 was subsequently sad. 2019 was shitty. 2020 was really shitty. (There was also the pandemic.) 2021 was even shittier. (There was also the pandemic.) 2022 is shaping up to be pretty shitty. (There will also be the pandemic.) Through it all was the music. Everyone has their escape, their grounding point, their way to drown out the tinnitus. However, the music that gets me through the good times and the bad has changed quite a bit. In 2018 I attended Migration Fest which was predominantly black and death metal and never wanted to miss a second of it. By 2021 I barely listened to black or death metal at all. Or thrash. At least not anything new. Nope. It was all about the doom, the stoner, the rock, the sludge, the psych. With exceptions. Nothing too violent or aggressive. I don't have time for that. I needed chill. I needed vibe. I needed groove. I needed dark and slow. I needed stuff to take my mind away. So, here's what filled those needs the most in 2021! 

Instead of a numbered list, I used three tiers for the top 25 albums. After the top tier is a big ole list of albums that I felt obligated to list because they were also pretty damn good.

Third Tier

Gojira - 'Fortitude' (Roadrunner Records)
Monster Magnet - 'A Better Dystopia' (Napalm Records)
Hippie Death Cult - 'Circle of Days' (Heavy Psych Sounds Records)
Yawning Sons - 'Sky Island' (Ripple Music)
Dvne - 'Etemen Ænka' (Metal Blade Records)
Go Ahead and Die - 'Go Ahead and Die' (Nuclear Blast Records)
Kadabra - 'Ultra' (Heavy Psych Sounds Records)
Redscale - 'The Old Colossus' (Majestic Mountain Records)
Snake Mountain Revival - 'Everything in Sight' (Rebel Waves Records)
Monolord - 'Your Time to Shine' (Relapse Records)
24/7 Diva Heaven - 'Stress' (Noisolution)
High Desert Queen - 'Secrets of the Black Moon' (Ripple Music)
Dayglo Mourning - 'Dead Star' (Black Doomba Records)
King Buffalo - 'Acheron' (self-released)
Earthless - 'Live in the Mojave Desert' (Giant Rock Records/Heavy Psych Sounds Records)

Second Tier

Lazer Beam - 'Lazer Beam' (LCF Records)
Danko Jones - 'Power Trio' (Sonic Unyon Records)
Fear Factory - 'Aggression Continuum' (Nuclear Blast Records)
Sons of Alpha Centauri - 'Push' (Exile on Mainstream)
Archspire - 'Bleed the Future' (Season of Mist)

Top Tier

Olde - 'Pilgrimage' (Seeing Red Records)
King Buffalo - 'The Burden of Restlessness' (self-released)
Stӧner - 'Stoners Rule' (Heavy Psych Sounds Records)
Blackwater Holylight - 'Silence/Motion' (RidingEasy)
Elder and Kadavar - 'Eldovar: A Story of Darkness and Light' (Robotor Records)

Other Rad Albums

Appalooza - 'The Holy of Holies' (Ripple)
16 and Grime split - 'Doom Sessions Vol. 3' (Heavy Psych Sounds)
Acid Mammoth - 'Caravan' (Heavy Psych Sounds)
Shiva the Destructor - 'Find the Others' (Robust Fellow)
Greenleaf - 'Echoes From a Mass' (Napalm)
Bongzilla - 'Weedsconsin' (Heavy Psych Sounds)
Domkraft - 'Seeds' (Magnetic Eye)
Moon Coven - 'Slumber Wood' (Ripple)
Vokonis - 'Odyssey' (The Sign Records)
Head of Jeddore - 'How to Slaughter a Lamb' (self-released)
Somnuri - ' Nefarious Wave' (Blues Funeral)
Black Sky Giant - 'Planet Terror' and 'Falling Mothership' (self)
Smiling - 'Devour' (Rebel Waves)
Black Label Society - 'Doom Crew Inc.' (eOne)
Jointhugger - 'Surrounded by Vultures' (Majestic Mountain)
Lucifer - 'Lucifer IV' (Century Media)
Mastodon - 'Hushed & Grim' (Warner)
Kowloon Walled City - 'Piecework' (Neurot/Gilead Media)
Crystal Spiders - 'Morieris' (Ripple)
Bogwife - 'A Passage Divine' (Majestic Mountain)
Holy Death Trio - 'Introducing' (Ripple)
Hooded Menace - 'The Tritonus Bell' (Season of Mist)
Trappist/Connoisseur - 'Crossfaded' (Tankcrimes)
Marc Rizzo - 'Living Shred Vol. 1' (Godsize)
Low Flying Hawks - 'FUYU' (Magnetic Eye)
Kal-El - 'Dark Majesty' (Majestic Mountain)
Comet Control - 'Inside the Sun' (Tee Pee)
Snail - 'Fractal Altar' (Argonauta)
1782 - 'From the Graveyard' (Heavy Psych Sounds)
Sunnata - 'Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth' (self)
Heavy Temple - 'Lupis Amoris' (Magnetic Eye)
Sion - 'Sion' (self)
Spirit Mother - 'Live in the Mojave Desert' (Giant Rock/HPS)
Stӧner - 'Live in the Mojave Desert' (Giant Rock/HPS)
Mountain Tamer - 'Live in the Mojave Desert' (Giant Rock/HPS)

Favourite 40 of 2018

I read once that on average, people stop looking for new bands to listen to in their mid 30s. I turned 40 late in 2018 and I'm definitely feeling the pull of complacency. Maybe it's just because I'm getting old but my patience level has plummeted. Time is precious and I no longer force myself to listen to something because I feel obligated to. If I wrinkle my nose enough in the first three songs, I'm out. Besides, the endless swarm of new albums and bands that only gets bigger with each passing year is too much to consume. I wasn't giving anything a fair shake. So in 2018 I shrugged my shoulders and said "fuck it." I spent as much time with whatever album as I wanted to. A solid month of almost nothing but the new Corrosion of Conformity? OK! A deep dive into Brant Bjork's solo career? Why would I ever stop?! Weeks of Tomb Mold worship? Oh, Canada! With such a pullback on new explorations, I'm surprised I even had 40 albums I felt deserved to be on my list. I did have some rather unfortunate cuts to make though. Who cares? Anyway, here are the 40 albums that made me happiest in 2018. That's all that matters.

Please note, Clutch's Book of Bad Decisions is my absolute favourite of 2018 but I CANNOT be objective with Clutch under any circumstances.

40. Lucifer - Lucifer II (Century Media) - For some reason I was reluctant to like this. Still busted up about The Oath being a one-and-done? Regardless, I thought this rocked enough to make sure I mentioned it. 

39. Deicide - Overtures of Blasphemy (Century Media) - I was into Deicide before I was into Cannibal Corpse, okay? They're my kind of death metal. Deal with it.

38. Scorched - Ecliptic Butchery (20 Buck Spin) - Again with the my kind of death metal. Brutal. Hard. Dark. Sci-fi themed just makes it that much cooler! 

37. Ulthar - Cosmovore (20 Buck Spin) - Whoa! Death metal again? Ya, man. It was a good year. Ulthar throw a little more technicality into the brutality but do so with just the right dosage. 

36. Bongripper - Terminal (Gilead Media) - Instrumental, leaden doom will bring me pleasure every day of the week. So long as it's done as expertly as these laid back dudes who know how to name a band.

35. Sundrifter - Visitations (Small Stone) - So smooth! This kind of desert rock influenced warmth will take me to my grave. I could listen to these fuzzy-eyed jams til the end of time.

34. Domkraft - Flood (Blues Funeral) - Give me psychedelic doom or give me death! So blissfully easy to completely lose yourself in their dense and textured sound.

33. A Storm of Light - Anthroscene (Translation Loss) - Always been a fan of Josh Graham's work with this band. Thoughtful and hypnotic darkness that repeatedly smacks you in the face.

32. Trappist - Ancient Brewing Tactics (Relapse) - Beer and grind combine to make an intoxicating brew of absolute good times. I got 99 problems but Trappist ain't one! 

31. Monster Magnet - Mindfucker (Napalm) - This is far from the best Monster Magnet album. More rock and less psych isn't usually what Monster Magnet fans ask for but I'm still psyched at how much it rocks! 

30. Extremity - Coffin Birth (20 Buck Spin) - Top shelf death metal and 20 Buck Spin go together like peanut butter and jelly. As in, consumed by me on a very regular basis. This one just plain old tears your throat out.

29. Mountain Tamer - GodFortune // Dark Matters (Magnetic Eye) - You could throw this in with the stoner rock crowd I suppose. It is the riffs that make this so addictive after all. But the real clincher is the "SATAN!!!" scream. I won't tell you when it hits. 

28. Alice in Chains - Ranier Fog (BMG) - Fine. They're a different band since Layne died. We get it. What did you expect? That doesn't mean they aren't still one of my favourite bands EVER and don't deserve it, goddammit! 

27. Dead Meadow - The Nothing They Need (Xemu) - I heard Dead Meadow playing in a record store back in 2001 and bought it immediately. They still connect with my soul.

26. Vile Creature - Cast of Static and Smoke (self) - This heavy-as-fuck Canadian duo made quite the splash in 2018. The nihilism and heft of this crushing slab of catharsis should make everyone want to join their angry queer doom cult.

25. Wiegedood - De Dodden Hebben Het Goed III (Century Media) - I wasn't as enamored with this one as I was with II but there's something bewitching about the tornado of fierce black metal they employ to put the ice in my veins. I can't shake the desire.

24. Khemmis - Desolation (20 Buck Spin) - I saw Khemmis play at Migration Fest and they needed a longer set. Such great songwriting. Power, melody, passion. Even better with beer.

23. Psychlona - Mojo Rising (Ripple) - Sometimes I just need an overdose of psych dancing in oblivion with a god-like profusion of fuzzed-out riffs. It gets my mojo rising. Man.

22. Castle - Deal Thy Fate (Ripple) - Speaking of riffs... This duo really cranks them out. Sorta lo-fi, sorta retro, lotsa headbanging fun. A doomy crunch nodding to classic rock. Catchy as all get out!

21. Sunnata - Outlands (self) - Oh my goodness have I enjoyed sinking into the ethereal place this album takes me. The psych factor here is sky high. Dangerously hypnotic and completely mesmerizing.

20. Conan - Existential Void Guardian (Napalm) - I'm always down for some caveman battle doom! And with that extra muscle the new drummer brings you know my steering wheel is getting a serious beating! 

19. Slaves BC - Lo, and I Am Burning (Fear & The Void) - I had the pleasure of meeting drummer-vocalist Josh Thieler and he's basically the polar opposite of the gnarly, dark, at times terrifying menace that comes blasting out of my speakers. Only ashes remain.

17 and 18. Black Space Riders - Amoretum Vol. 1 & 2 (Black Space/Cargo) - Not sure how to describe this. It makes me think of 80s/90s goth/emo/new wave but they carry a swagger and a hard edge that keeps it from feeling sappy. And we got two albums of it this year! Did I mention the tags of psychedelic, stoner, prog and space rock on their bandcamp?

16. Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown (Nuclear Blast) - Pepper's back!!! Not that I didn't like the other lineup (again) but I discovered the band during the previous Pepper years so this return to form hits all the right spots!

15. Tomb Mold - Manor of Infinite Forms (20 Buck Spin) - Funny how I had to go all the way to Pittsburgh to see Tomb Mold when Toronto is two hours down the road. It was worth it to see all their filthy death metal in the flesh.

14. Gozu - Equilibrium (Metal Blade) - I bought one vinyl record in 2018. This one. How was I lucky enough to see them "at home"? No matter. There's stoner rock/metal and then there's Gozu. They are like a drug. A highly addictive, psychedelic, somewhat progressive, hard-hitting drug. With the year's best album cover. (Edit: I bought the Slaves BC vinyl too.)

13. Beaten to Death - Agronomicon (Mas-kina) - Keeping a new B2D album out of the top 10 was hard. But it came out on Christmas Eve. I basically had to postpone this list because it. They are their own brand of melodic grindcore. Crazy good craziness.

12. Skeletonwitch - Devouring Radiant Light (Prosthetic) - I never doubted Adam Clemans as the new singer in Skeletonwitch but now I have fully embraced him. This seems like a more mature album that still rips as hard as they always have.

11. Wolvhammer - The Monuments of Ash and Bone (Blood Music) - Speaking of Adam Clemans.... He kills it with Wolvhammer too. This album takes over my body until I am "The Failure King"! Burly black metal that still hammers the riffs into you forever. Incredible.



Because I thought I did a good job, and because I want to get this thing posted now that it's MARCH, the following blurbs are copied from an original post at Hellbound.ca. Enough procrastinating!!!

10. Cancer Bats - The Spark That Moves (New Damage/Bat Skull) - I was more than pleasantly surprised when this dropped out of nowhere on April 20. (Coincidence?) The Spark That Moves feels like a comeback record to me. They’ve never not been great but this has an energy that supercharged my being in a way they haven’t since Hail Destroyer. It was a daily listen for months. The summer months were definitely the brightest days thanks to their high energy, meaningful, and fun fusion of hardcore, sludge and whatever else they can squeeze in. I saw some these songs live too and let me tell you, dude…

9. Soulfly - Ritual (Napalm) - I would usually leave Soulfly off a list like this altogether due to personal bias (the first tattoo I ever got was a Soulfly logo) but Ritual warrants the recognition due to the change in direction the band takes. Soulfly had been going in a more intense death-thrash direction on recent efforts but Ritual sounds more like Max Cavalera in the mid-to-late ’90s. Late Sepultura, early Soulfly. Not nu-metal though. Groovy? Sure. Tribal? Some. Intensity? You better believe it. It impressed many fans who had given up ages ago and even some that have hung in the whole time.



8. Windhand - Eternal Return (Relapse) - Virginia’s Windhand teased ever so tantalizingly with their half of a split with Satan’s Satyrs. That appetizer was the perfect setup for the satisfying main course. Eternal Return satiates all doom desires. The warm tones penetrate your body while the flowing riffs liquify your bones into a vaporous syrup. Dorthia Cottrell continues her reign among the most affecting doom vocalists of this, or any age in the genre’s evolution. Windhand’s earthly and bewitching doom is a blessing of mood music. The beauty of it is there’s a whole range of moods Eternal Return can amplify or soothe. A potent elixir for all your ills.

7. Secret Cutter - Quantum Eraser (self) - Have you ever seen an industrial metal stamp in action? Bending thick steel into whatever shape the creator desires. Intense irresistible downward force. Complete obliteration. That’s how Secret Cutter destroy you. They crush so hard you’re erased down to a quantum level. It’s a heavy as fuck exercise in sludge, doom, and grind. Spine-tingling vocals set hairs on end as their curiously bent chords mold your skull into new and interesting shapes. Nothing else out there this year hits like the planet smashing sledgehammering Secret Cutter dish out. This music will bruise you.



6. Astrakhan - Without New Growth Process is Bloodshed (self) - RIP Astrakhan. With this release it was made known that Astrakhan was to be no more. The SADness of February’s cold days took a new twist as Sans Astrakhan Disorder. The cure actually comes in the form of listening to the album. WNGPIB is masterful. There’s no term for their progressive, post-, hard-charging, doomy, sludge-into-stoner metal. That indescribability adds to its charm. Serpentine riffs and dynamic intensity take the listener through a lifetime of emotional shifts. Harmonies and vocals stretch your soul like puddy, solos send your mind exploding across galaxies, and the whole package… sadly wasn’t released on vinyl. I’m pretty excited for the guitarists’ new project Brugada though.



5. Fu Manchu - Clone of the Universe (New Damage/At the Dojo) - All that really needs to be said about Clone of the Universe is that there is an 18 minute song on it that features Alex Lifeson of Rush. He doesn’t play for the whole 18 minutes mind you but it’s still way cool. It’s also pretty cool that a band known for short-ish punchy tunes pulled off such a monster track and even embedded it with a new essential Fu Manchu moment. Light the throttle!!! Scott Hill and company do have surprises up their sleeve! Rest assured though the runtime friendly anthems of California-baked coolness that make up the rest of album leave their mark too. Fu Manchu doing Fu Manchu, with an adventurous twist.



4. Sleep - The Sciences (Third Man) - I’ve been a Sleep fan since I first discovered them in 2000. Jerusalem was unlike anything I had heard before. I finally got a chance to see them play back in August. They didn’t play all of Jerusalem/Dopesmoker but they did play some of it. They also played a bunch of songs from The Sciences, their first full-length since Dopesmoker was originally released in 2003. “Sonic Titan” is a holdover from those days given a boost from studio production. The songs range in length from the 3 minute intro/title track to the 14:23 of “Antarcticans Thawed” and every second is unmistakably Sleep. “Giza Butler” might be the second best song they’ve ever written. There’s a riff in there that is my spirit animal. Throw me off a bridge. I don’t care as long as that’s what I hear on the way down.



3. Brant Bjork - Mankind Woman (Heavy Psych Sounds) - This past year or so I have REALLY gotten into Brant Bjork. I loved Black Power Flower and Tao of the Devil but I never really dug into the past. I did this year. Partly due to Mankind Woman. I needed more. And more. As much as I could get. (HPS is actually reissuing most of his back catalogue so….) I can’t even get enough of this album though. Shades of funk and blues. Groove. Psych. Stoner vibes. An overwhelming sense of chill. These are some of my favourite things…about the album. And the lyrics. Songs about life. Diamond hard nuggets of wisdom. “Nation of Indica” is my favourite song of the year for just such reasons. Stay chill, my friends.



2. High on Fire - Electric Messiah (eOne) - My guess is that after dragging his strings around in Sleep and their new material he needed to balance that by making a new High on Fire album as intense as humanly possible. There is a fire burning under Electric Messiah that’s heating those riffs to a rapid boil. Add in the white hot electricity of this trio and you’ll be seeing God. Everything feels 110%. They’ve been at this a long while, and not without challenges, but they bludgeon with such conviction here you’d think their faces were young and fresh. So muscular, so intense, so brilliantly executed. I don’t care how people feel about High on Fire production (I hear nothing wrong here). It’s about the songs. I LOVE THESE SONGS.

1. Yob - Our Raw Heart (Relapse) - Yob’s Mike Scheidt fought a battle with death and won. Our Raw Heart is the result. No album this year made me FEEL as much as this one. As heavy as it is triumphant, it stirs the emotional pot for the duration. “Beauty in Falling Leaves”, the longest track on the album, challenges “Marrow” for most heart-wrenching Yob song ever. It feels like the band really came together on a higher level for this. I’m still baffled there was a time I didn’t even like Yob. Now I can’t imagine a world without their music. Such powerful doom is therapeutic, transporting the listener to a place both of and beyond suffering. To me at least, music like this is essential.

Thanks for hangin' in there.