Good afternoon, y’all.

As you may recall, I’ve talked a time or two about the benefits of following bands and labels on Bandcamp. Here’s another argument in favor of that practice: that’s how I found out about Druid Stone, a sorta-experimental doom project from Virginia: because I got the notification from Fiadh Produtions almost six months ago when Fiadh put out a cassette version of their 2023 album The Grateful Undead, which I’d like to tell you about today.

Arizonan thrashers Transgressive, on the other hand, I’ve been familiar with for several years, as they sort of roamed in similar leftist metal twitter circles (back when that used to be a thing). So I’d already heard and had already been a fan of their 2023 album Extreme Transgression, but then I happened to get an announcement last month that it also was being given the cassette treatment by Fiadh. So I figured, let’s check that one out today as well.

 

Druid Stone – The Grateful Undead (self-released, 26 January 2023 / cassette Fiadh Productions, 31 October 2025)

 

Transgressive – Extreme Transgression (self-released, 03 March 2023 / cassette Fiadh Productions, 06 March 2026)

 

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Druid Stone has been around for about a decade and a half now, with various members and live collaborators coming and going during that time, but the one constant has been Demeter Capsalis, who was responsible for performing all the parts on The Grateful Undead, Druid Stone‘s second of eight full-length albums (so far), along with a plethora of demos and splits and various sundry releases. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had another new EP or live album or something just since I started writing this paragraph.

Noisy, feedback-laden, and completely fuzzified, as opening track “Wiped Out” fades in, right away the recording has the energy and immediacy that feels like a live performance, not a studio project assembled by a single person. Downtempo doomy riffs, stonerific bass tones that almost glow like warm embers, distraught shouted vocals in a post-sludge/post-hardcore style, guitar solos that verge on late-60s psychedelia: as soon as you hit play you will get sucked into the irresistible groove that never really lets up.

Occasionally there is some cleaner singing, such as in the dreamy, trancey covers of “Night of the Vampire” and “I Walked with a Zombie,” both originally by psychedelic rock legend Roky Erickson. Glancing back at the track listing, it’s slightly unnerving to realize that some of these tracks have lasted ten or twelve minutes or longer, since it’s so easy to get lost in all the cozy layers of fuzziness and completely lose track of time and space for the duration — again, just as would be the case during a live performance, where you’re standing there entranced by the bright lights and the smoky haze and completely forget about everything outside of that club or bar, outside of that experience, that moment.

 

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Now, Transgressive, on the other hand, have been active on and off for just the past half-decade, but its trio of members (guitarist/vocalist Alicia Cordisco, bassist Leona Hayward, guitarist Joshua Payne) each have rather lengthy resumes in the world of power metal and thrash. Extreme Transgression was the band’s first, and so far only, LP, but they also have released quite a few singles and EPs over the years — and promise to be working on album two in the foreseeable future.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we’re here to look at this 2023 record. The sound sample that opens the record, in a track fittingly called “Thirteen Twelve,” tells a story of a cute little kid, who instantly becomes infinitely more endearing by addressing a cop with “Fuck you, pig.” If you were confused in any way about the political leanings you’re likely to experience here, well, there you go.

From there, the album maintains a similar level of aggression, not just vocally or regarding the tempo of the galloping riffs, but certainly in terms of its content and messaging. Titles such as “We Protect Us” and “Stonewall”; lyrics like “here’s our vote, sealed with a fist” definitely represent the attitude that things are pretty fucked up all over, but we (meaning, the band) have no plans to just accept it lying down.

Of course, no amount of good politics or good messaging will mean anything if the music isn’t worth listening to. Not a concern here: high-quality thrash abounds, with such a solid rhythm section foundation, that it’s almost unnoticeable (other than by reading the liner notes) that there isn’t a living human drummer credited here; killer guitar solos, occasionally some sweet twin-guitar leads (most notably: check out the intro to “Unheard Voices” where the two parts trade off a few times before joining together in harmony).

 

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The Druid Stone digital version is here, while the Fiadh cassette is here.

Find Transgressive‘s album digitally right here, on cassette here, or there’s also a vinyl edition over here.
 

 

Druid Stone: Bandcamp
Transgressive: Bandcamp | Bluesky
Fiadh: Bandcamp | Bluesky