Rolling Stoner/Psych 2020

14. Motorpsycho – The All Is One
All of their albums have always been one long trip, filled with tension arcs that demand exploration, devotion and adoration. The new record is no different and probably takes it all to the next level. the final piece in a trilogy that started back in 2017. Filled with long winded yet highly entertaining jams, rock tracks that have this intense pop side and rock that shimmies up against folk and prog. The biggest effort though is heard in a five part piece of art. Forty minutes of brilliant prog rock and a multitude of melodic themes. Fresh and vital sounding meandering sections of strings and almost otherworldly compositions, sounding so effortlessly and so unabashedly musical and precise. And unendingly inspirational; it will make you dream and it will make you want to create.

13. REZN - Chaotic Divine
It jumped to the Number One position of the Doom Charts upon release and it took the art of psychedelic doom to a whole new level. They’ve churned mud into mercury and grime into gold. A conceptual and exceptional piece of art that shines a different kind of light on all the heavy genres we love so dearly; it shows us that heavy riffs, quiet melodies, wild sax and intense synths can work together in perfect harmony to create something so divine yet chaotic.

12. Kind – Mental Nudge
Comprised out of members that already earned their heavy spurs on band such as Roadsaw, Elder, Rozamov and Black Pyramid. The seven tracks on their new album are heady, heavy, punchy, proggy and powerful. There is all sorts of heavy here that can all be taken at face value, but better experienced as a whole. And a whole it is; it feels round, complete and perfectly layered. It will submerge you into your own inner sphere and it will prod your psyche into every possible direction. It will do so aggressively without turning it into a violent act or violate any part of your mind, body or soul. There is something about this album that will resonate much longer than you might expect; in fact… It might resonate with you, with me and everybody who might come in touch with this album for as long as they will live… And then it will ring on into eternity.

11. Witchskull – A Driftwood Cross
Next up is an album with so much metal in it; it’s hard not to fall heavily in love with it. It’s doomy, it’s trippy, it’s pure class and intense classic metal. The riffs will lure you in, the drums will pound you into submission and the vocals with haunt you for the rest of your life. It’s thick, it’s vast and it’s electrifying. We continue to be dragged down the rabbit hole of this metal album; and love it for all the metal that it is. Even the occult touches, the stoner twitches and the Sabbath tics cannot steal away any second of the metal that is present. It is in the blood, it is marked and it is on the cross.

10. All Them Witches – Nothing As The Ideal
There aren’t that many bands that can truly deliver this kind of feeling and atmosphere with a potent mixture of mercury stoner riffs, grinded blues patterns and pressed psychedelic ambience. There is a presence lurking hear that feels weird and will ride your body like a wave of goosebumps. Changing up their magical concoction with every record, the (now) trio delivers something stunningly sinister and majestically gothic. Nothing seems to be standing in their way of imploring gritty metal riffs and chugging rhythms to create their ideal and seemingly perfect universe… Creepy by default and completely enthralling! Furious, epic and cinematic!

9. Slift – Ummon
On Number 9 we find an album that implores hefty stoner riffs, cumbersome doom influences, a whole universe filled with space rock and all that lovely kraut to color their own style intense heavy prog. And there is that jazzy side; which is so much in debt to the drummer and propels the band evermore forward and always to greater heights. Turning all into one king hell of an electric kool-aid acid trip! There are distant echoes and reveries, celestial choirs illuminating space. Ancestral voices and ancient extraterrestrial rites. Abyssal doom and apocalyptic noise. There's chaos. And there's silence. There’s a pull, a push, a change, a swing and a shift!

8. Sun Crow – Quest For Oblivion
Yes, we are talking about that proto, nay, paleo metal effort from Seattle. Adventuring through the blues roots and the doom beginnings; they turn their metal something dark, brooding and colossal. And it just grows and grows and becomes bigger and bigger as the album progresses; and we launch straight towards the edge of the known universe. Where time melts and every law of nature we assume has merit disappears like an asteroid turns into one single atom. It is an adventure, it a quest, a search for something one cannot name.

7. Bonehawk – Iron Mountain
An album, we must confess, we were pretty late to get hip to. The rest of Doom Chart Contributors were already grooving to this beast of an album and voting it up on the Doom Charts before it could grab us, pull us in an infect us with its mountainous riffs and rhythms. Intensely dynamic and continuously shifting color; the nine tracks on this album move from classic sounding hard rock and metal to stoner infused new day magnificence. Yes, for these guys its an effortlessly small step from the seventies psych, jam and blues to harmony and heavy trucking from the nineties. They’ve got their very own strange kind of magic and it will spellbind you and slowly infect you with its addictiveness.

Fuck yeah Slift!

6. Forming The Void – Reverie
Once again we hear a partnership between sludge metal, stoner and prog being performed at the very edge of the alchemic dreamstate. You will soon be lost in an golden oblivious state and you will experience the impressionistic compositions in all its glory. With ever more use of melodies, intricate structures and dynamic extremes they conjure up a majestic groove that will swallow you whole. It turns the heavy churn into something transcendental, mystical and magical. And it turns their sound into the all encompassing greatness of genre breaking and boundaries shaking music. An album that should be in everyone’s possession!

5. Kryptograf – Kryptograf
On Number 5 we find a debut album that just immediately turned everything and everyone around them on and in on their sound. The four Norwegians have found their own little filthy proto hole to curl up in and transform all the weird stuff they find into proto gold, occult love and prog addiction. With some doom influences, psychedelic touches and a lot of sixties and seventies devotion the four from Bergen give us once again an album married to all that brilliance out of the original golden age of heavy rock. Sharing vocal duties between three, the four ride out the fuzz wherever it may take them. And it will take you on such a wild and amazing adventure that you cannot help fall head over heels with this album… A classic in every sense of the word.

4. King Buffalo – Dead Star
It is doomy, it is metal, it is psychedelic, it is sludge and most of all it dares to fare into different territories, turning experimental into this precious adventure that one and all enjoys and wants to experience over and over again... It’s a trip, addictive by nature and always leaving the listener wanting more; a tapestry of intricate textures and of a multitude of colors, ever building and masters in delaying the inevitable, they are the kings.

December Doom Charts. Yep, there's still more stuff we hadn't heard worth checking out!
https://doomcharts.com/2020/12/29/doom-charts-december-2020/

Stefan is remastering In Her Garden (2017) next

Bulbous - annoying unanswerable question but what do you think, wait for this or get the current CD?

I mean there's no chance it doesn't sound good anyway is there.

That Wormhog & new Green Druid were pleasant surprises in December.

Yeah I can't imagine a remaster of a 2017 album would have an easily noticeable difference, unless the original was really screwed up somehow.

Of the Dec entries, stuff by Superlord, Black Spell, Satorinaut and Mollo Rilla were available NYP so I got 'em.

3. Elephant Tree – Habits
This English psychedelic stoner rock formation delivers their take on earthy and folky inspiration with a high dose of fuzz and equal amount of enchanting atmosphere. Some doomy energy here and a lot of progressive touches turns this album into a must-have classic with no effort at all. For the unbelievable amount of earth shaking riffs and thundering grooves seem to continue on like a tsunami of heaviness. You can’t remain the occasional user listening to this one; it will enlarge any form of habit or addiction you have to this kind of music; it will balloon and it will be majestic!

2. Psychlona - Venus Skytrip
“There's no holding back either as the album opens with one of its most entertaining cuts. The aptly named "Blast Off" starts with one of the best licks on the record, piercing guitar notes that seem to strobe and echo out to the farthest reaches of space. Underneath are rocksteady drums that build towards the inevitable explosion of distortion, a launchpad for a driving groove.”

There can be only one… We climb almost two hundred points from the amazing Venus Skytrip album by Psychlona on the Number 2 position of the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown of 2020 to reach the Gold Medal. The Number 1 of 2020! According to all the lists sent our way, all the votes cast, this is the best album of 2020. So we thank all of you once again for voting, for helping the Stoner HiVe Top 20 Countdown become more valid with every passing year and we thank all the bands for delivering all those amazing albums! Twenty years ago this Swedish quartet delivered a landmark album and now the boys are back with a follow-up and yet another masterpiece! Atavistic stoner rock with a majestic groove; an ode to all that pure heavy rock goodness and that spacey delivery. It is not the work of a band trying to recapture the magic of that first album but just a band of brothers that are finally taking the next step of their journey. We can go on and on about all the albums that we heard during this insane year; we can profess our love for many of them; but this one delivered all of that condensed and turned their sound into quicksilver and made it move through all manner of energy and particles that simply became unbreakable adoration for all that we worship about this thing called stoner rock. It is a dream come true, an ode once again and even bigger that before! We bow before the four and beg them to keep taking a next step in their majestic journey; we give you the Number One album of 2020… The Gold Medal goes to:

1. Lowrider – Refractions

Thx fast

The Lowrider was also number 1 on The Obelisk’s list that went up today.

For one of the founder members of the stoner hive groups on audiogalaxy and slsk and also owner of the fb group, im terrible at missing the ballot deadline. 3 years in a row I've forgotten to vote. Joop has given up reminding me haha but as always he's done a great job.

Lets hope the gap between Lowrider albums isnt as long next time. Superb album, as was their last one all those years ago. I had the CD of it but got the vinyl reissue this year.

Thanks, Fast! I don't listen to as much stoner/heavy psych as I'd like but I love the shit out of that Lowrider album. Well deserved imo.

Yeah, been re-listening to the Lowrider and appreciating it more. I sometimes get stoner rock fatigue keeping up with the Doom Charts, hence underrating it.

Yet another damn list, and annoyingly most of it's good so had more to catch up on ;)

https://fragmentedflaneur.com/2020/12/28/50-essential-albums-2020/

Stop your smokin' and start your votin'.

Don't neglect to observe that the Metal 'n' Heavy Rock poll is not just for metalheads.

Six days till the deadline.

2020 Metal ’n’ Heavy Rock Poll: VOTING & FURTHER CAMPAIGNING thread (open until February 19)

Yeah I can't imagine a remaster of a 2017 album would have an easily noticeable difference, unless the original was really screwed up somehow.

Incidentally, I bought the CD (Colour Haze - In Her Garden) and it seems like Stefan may indeed have remastered and quietly reissued it in 2019 (!). Super solid and lovely album, and finishing on the Skydancer / Skydance double whammy takes it above and beyond.

I don't feel like starting a new thread for this because I'm not even sure it fits here but surely the new Plankton Wat will be of interest to some people:

https://planktonwat.bandcamp.com/album/future-times

The music of Portland musician Dewey Mahood exists in constant communion with nature. From acclaimed albums with heavy-psych mainstays Eternal Tapestry to his prolific solo excursions, Mahood’s work has always been defined by his restless exploratory spirit and reverence for the environment. As Plankton Wat, his expressionist compositions exude a supernatural grace and patience, reflecting the resplendent beauty and mythical energy of the West Coast’s wild places. Piece blossoms from low-lit, porchside ambience into powerful head-trips, ushering the listener through ravines of feedback and along warm currents of synthesizer drift to peaks of lysergic bliss. Mahood’s masterful and distinct guitarwork consistently blurs the confines of the instrument, at once texturally and melodically rich. Future Times elevates Mahood’s psychedelic instrumentals to new planes. Written to the backdrop of social unrest and climate change fueled fires, Mahood lays out a sprawling cinematic and psychedelic survey of a planet in crisis that weaves a path of hope through the darkness.

also, if you're tired / wary of loving good music made by terrible people, Dewey is absolutely just the *best* dude.

i've been listening to this band from boulder a bit. i'd link a youtube but i don't think they have any. they seem to have slid from more core psyche and space into a more stoner feel to my ear, but the drone and gaze components work really well for me.
https://grass.bandcamp.com/album/grass

dunno if there's a new thread but this album is great. They're from Barcelona

https://maragda.bandcamp.com/album/maragda

“This record tells the story of Maragda, a civilization that took refuge underground after the Great Disaster. Many years have passed now, and the memory of a life on the surface has completely faded. People live under the oppression of a totalitarian government, The Core, when suddenly a strange voice speaks inside their minds. After this call, a group of rebels launches an expedition through The Unknown, willing to discover the secrets of Maragda”

Psychedelic rock and progressive rock from Barcelona.

OUT on 15th October 2021.
Pre-order available from 10th September 2021.

"Hermit" Official Video: youtu.be/ny2ii-9lpWE

Don't know if there's a new 2022 thread for this kinda stuff but

https://weloveyoujunzo.bandcamp.com/album/strato-arcology

n February 2022, Junzo fell from a train platform in Tokyo and was rendered unconscious. Junzo suffered intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage. He regained consciousness and is now in a rehabilitation hospital.

Junzo cannot access his own Bandcamp or PayPal right now so this page has been set up by his friends Tabata Mitsuru & Ned Netherwood to support him.

Pretty heavy monster jamming stuff.

Mt. Mountain - Centre

from Perth, this very chill smear of drone, motorik, and psych is so so nice. sometimes reminds me of an ambient versh of the flavor crystals, but probably more on their prev release Cardinal Fuzz Shop, also great.

Oooh sounds nice, I'll have to check that one out.

I've been digging the new Kaleidobolt, kinda stoner kinda prog kinda heavy psych that doesn't take itself too seriously.

hello stoner/psych amigos! here's a record from earlier this year that i really like:

https://dhidalahggb.bandcamp.com/album/sensoria

(brought to you by Guruguru Brain)

omg nepaal

Man I don't know how I missed out on REZN before, but this stuff is killer!