Monthly Archives: April 2021

Domkraft – The End of Electricity (2016), Flood (2018), Seeds (2021)

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Domkraft – The End of Electricity (Magnetic Eye Records, 11 November 2016)

 

Domkraft – Flood (Blues Funeral Recordings, 19 October 2018)

 

Domkraft – Seeds (Magnetic Eye Records, 30 April 2021)

 

Happy Friday, y’all! I’m about to send you off into the weekend with THREE whole albums you can jam out to.

Sweden’s Domkraft (compounded from the words for “doom” and “power“) have been churning out the doomy/sludgy/spacey hits for YEARS. (Well maybe not exactly hits — the band described them as “trudging, 10-minute/three chord songs.”)

Their latest record drops today, but the first two are equally worth checking out, so I wanted to make sure you didn’t miss any of them…

 

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Wolf King – The Path of Wrath; Discarded Self – S/T (2021)

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Wolf King – The Path of Wrath (Prosthetic Records, 05 March 2021)

 

Discarded Self – Discarded Self (Sarcophagus Recordings, 30 April 2021)

 

Hello again, readers! Hard to believe how quickly another month has flown by…

I’ve got another pair of albums to share with you today, each filled with darkness and nastiness, from two groups who both reside somewhere out west. Let’s dive right in!

 

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Greylock / BEDTIMEMAGIC – Split (2021)

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Greylock / BEDTIMEMAGIC – Split (Tor Johnson Records, 12 February 2021)

 

Good afternoon, and a Happy Monday to you all!

Submitted for your enjoyment, I’ve got a split tape that came out a couple months back — each side features a handful of tunes by a different Boston-area duo (included among which is a cover of one song by the band from the other side). These represent fairly disparate genres within the general metal mise en scène, so hopefully there should be something for everyone here. Off we go…

 

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Battle Hag – Celestial Tyrant; Kultika – Capricorn Wolves (2021)

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Battle Hag – Celestial Tyrant (Transylvanian Tapes, 11 January 2021)

 

Kultika – Capricorn Wolves (Loud Rage Music, 11 January 2021)

 

Well, readers, another dreadful work week is mercifully drawing to a close. We finally made it to Friday. As a treat, today I’ll be sharing not one, not two, … ok wait, yes two … different albums for you to check out! Both were released back in January, both reside somewhere within the realm of doom metal, and I found both to be quite enjoyable to listen to. I hope you will too!

 

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Extinction – Smoldering Enfoulment (2020)

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Extinction – Smoldering Enfoulment (DIY, 21 July 2020)

 

Happy Earth Day!

Seems like a rather opportune time to take a look back at an album we missed out on sharing with you when it was released last summer: the debut of Swedish self-proclaimed “Eco-Slam” band Extinction, Smoldering Enfoulment. Eight tracks, nearly twenty minutes, of raw brutality — symbolic of the way humans have treated our planet and everything living on it.

 

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Body Void – Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth (2021)

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Body Void – Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth, 23 April 2021
(Prosthetic Records LP+CD / Tridroid Records cassette)

 

Following up on yesterday’s post, today I will again feature a band whose first few releases have been incredible (more on that here and here) and have consistently landed upon my list of top releases for whatever year they happened to have been released; and who is now putting out another masterpiece of a record this year.

This one is due to reach the general public in exactly two days. Brace yourselves, and let’s talk about Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth.

 

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Cave of Swimmers – Aurora (2021)

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Cave of Swimmers – Aurora (BroomTune Records, 23 February 2021)

 

Good afternoon!

As we find ourselves nearing the end of the fourth month of 2021, I’m continuing to tirelessly put in the effort to get myself caught up on current and recent new releases… in case anyone was curious, today I’ve just dipped below 100 unread messages in my inbox for the first time all year (down from somewhere around 2000 just a few weeks ago)!

Anyway, one thing that jumped out at me as a very pleasant surprise: I’ve learned that one of my absolute favorite new discoveries of the past decade, Venezuelan-Floridian duo Cave of Swimmers, has put out a new album! Like two months ago!

I have to say, I’m very thankful to have received notification of this release in my mailbox — because otherwise I might never have heard about it. I mentioned it years ago when I wrote about the band’s first two releases (each a 4-song EP), and it’s still true today: these guys are criminally under-recognized, given that every single piece of music they’ve ever released has been — to use a technical term from the industry — a banger.

Both of those earlier releases ended up on my list of their respective years’ top albums, and I don’t care what else comes out in 2021, I can tell you right now that Aurora will be hitting the list again when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

 

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The Limit – Caveman Logic (2021)

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The Limit – Caveman Logic (Svart Records, 09 April 2021)

 

Here’s a Friday afternoon riddle for you: what do you get when you mix a couple musicians from highly influential proto-punk/punk-rock bands of the 70s, a couple musicians from a 21st-century doom band, and then round out the line-up with with a vocalist widely regarded as one of the main influencers and forefathers of doom metal from the 70s to present?

More specifically, bassist Jimmy Recca (best known for a brief stint with The Stooges in 1971 before the band broke up for the first time, although he later went on to play with guitarist Ron Asheton‘s band The New Order after The Stooges broke up again) and guitarist Sonny Vincent (of the short-lived, late-70s NYC punk band Testors, as well as an extensive solo and collaborative career ever since then), plus Hugo Conim and Joao Pedro (guitar and drums, respectively, from Portuguese doom band Dawnrider), probably the best-known member of this musical collective, especially to readers of this website, would be vocalist Bobby Liebling (the only constant member of Pentagram throughout their long and tumultuous history)…

 

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Soothsayer – At This Great Depth (2016); Echoes of the Earth (2021)

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Soothsayer – At This Great Depth (Transcending Obscurity Records, 30 December 2016)

 

Soothsayer – Echoes of the Earth (Transcending Obscurity Records, 09 April 2021)

 

Good afternoon, friends! I’m going to start today with a brief bit of explanation/clarification: the band we’ll be discussing and listening to is one who’ve never been featured on this website before. Long-time readers with unnaturally exceptional memories may note that approximately five years ago I wrote about a split record, half of which was attributed to a band called Soothsayer, who were primarily of the neocrust persuasion (with some blackened and ambient-doom influences thrown in). That band was from Pittsburgh — roughly 30 miles from where I lived.

Well later that same year, I happened to hear about an upcoming release from a band called Soothsayer, essentially an ambient-doom group (with some blackened and crusty influences thrown in). This “other” Soothsayer resides approximately 3300 miles further away in Cork, but their material was equally successful at catching my attention and interest. Unfortunately, I never managed to find a chance to write about it — until now, on the eve of “Irish Soothsayer” releasing their debut full-length.

 

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