Bongripper at Myspace

Bongripper is a stoner/doom/post-metal outfit from Chicago. All of the members are just in it for the love of music and don’t care about money; from what I read in another review of this album, one of them even leaked it onto the internet. The brand of sludgy psychedelia on Hippie Killer is excellent; it is almost entirely instrumental (with the exception of the track “Terrible Bear Attack”) I do have to admit that I didn’t enjoy the drumless, dronier tracks as much as the doomier ones, but the latter type tend to be much longer so it’s okay. I also thought the album went on a bit too long; at just under the maximum 80 minutes for a CD, it felt like the band was just trying too hard to fill out the entire thing. Also, I felt the vocals on “Terrible Bear Attack” were really annoying, and I was glad that track was just 3 minutes long.

Those are my only real quibbles with the album, though; it’s wonderfully atmospheric with crushing riffs, and I totally would’ve gotten high to this if my social skills were good enough to obtain weed. My personal favorite track was the 16-minute “Reefer Sutherland,” although most of the album was strong. Fans of this style of metal will love Hippie Killer.

Runemagick at myspace

“Dawn of the End” known as “Voyage of Desolation/Dawn of the end” by some is just one in a long line of stellar releases from the Swedish underground veterans. Runemagick’s approach on this album like on all their releases differ from other Doom/Death bands such as Coffins and Disembowelment in that there are no fast Death Metal segments. Every minute of music on this album is at a snails pace yet still retains a definite death metal sound. “Dawn of the End” evokes a sense of hopeless and endless depression. It is a musical mire of brutal despair and unrelenting ugliness.

The first Paradise Lost album, Autopsy, Dream Death, Hellhammer, Eyehategod and Immolation are all certifiable influences on this dark and soul sapping piece of downbeat metal. Whilst the popularity of traditional doom/death in the underground metal scene has fallen and risen over the years, Runemagick have been creating masterpieces in the sub-genre no matter what. This is yet another one of those masterpieces.

Colosseum at Myspace

Not to be confused with the 60’s prog rock pioneers or the American Sludge-core band on Relapse Record, Colosseum are the latest in a long line of traditional funeral doom metal acts that have come out of Finland. They follow in a long line of such acts such as Thergothon, Skepticism and Shape of Despair but whilst taking ample influence from these acts, they have their own take on the genre. It is a more guitar centric take that owes a very slight debt to Paradise Lost era Gothic and some of the more tuneful displays that Esoteric have put on. The vocals are suitably gruff and uninviting and interplay with the despairing yet humane synth lines.

It’s not what they do though, but what they don’t do which makes them worth your while. A lot of  second wave funeral doom acts drench their songs in keyboard lines. Yes the synth is almost as important as the guitar in finnish style funeral doom, but if it is louder than the guitar line then as metal itself it fails. The synths in good funeral doom are supposed to add to the ambience and pathos of the music and on “Chapter 1: Delirium” this is exactly what happens. The momentum of the perpetual sorrow of this record is seemingly never-ending, and Colosseum has proven themselves to be a definite band to watch out for which future releases.

Earth at Myspace

Earth’s masterpiece “Earth 2” was the archetype of all drone doom metal records and throughout their career as a band they’ve always done something new on each album. Again they’ve broken new ground as rather than go back to square one and create a new sound for “the bees made honey in the lions skull” they’ve built upon the approach they created for their previous album “Hex or the Infernal Printing Method” and improved it immensely.

“Hex or the Infernal Printing Method” was one damn good album in itself with more replay value than that youtube video of the toddler getting somersaulted into the air by a breakdancer but “the bees made honey in the lion’s skull” is a step beyond that. It takes the bizarre frontier ambience of that album and simultaneously refines and makes sound more alive with that sense of the great unconquered wilderness that you only get with latter day Earth records.

The clean minimalist riffs fused with the hypnotic percussion and subtle piano and organ creates a style of music that isn’t really metal but then again can’t really be anything else. If you add some distortion to the guitars and produce it in a different way you’d have something undeniably metal but then that would take away the beauty and ambiguity of this record. This is a bizarre sound to describe but the nearest I can get is the primal spirit of Black Sabbath co-existing with the classical avant-garde minimalism of Phillip Glass, the haunting country instrumentals of Duane Eddy and a nod towards the post rock of Slint. You can still hear the concepts that Earth introduced to metal and that were since taken up by Boris, SunnO))) and Cult of Luna to name but a few. It’s a Metal album but not as we know it Jim!

Sahg at Myspace

‘Sahg II’ is unsurprisingly the Second album by Norwegian Doom Metal super-group Sahg. Their first album, unsurprisingly titled ‘Sahg I’, was a superb piece of inventive trad doom inspired principally by Black Sabbath and Candlemass. Their second effort expands both the range of influences and range of contrasting style contained with Sahg’s sound immensely. There are two main directions that Sahg are pulling on ‘Sahg II’. The first is 60′s and 70′s psychedelia with the likes of Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Cream and Hawkwind being key references points. The swirling, lush and almost seductive tones of the ‘Echoes Ring Forever’ with its epic, seductive drugged-up outro and the chilled out and inventive instrumental that follows it, “from conscious sleep” being prime examples of this.

The second major influence is that of NWOBHM and pre thrash 80’s heavy metal in general such as Witchfinder General, Angelwitch, Manilla Road, and Witchfynde. These elements are usually more subtly placed within the overall ‘Sahg II’ sound with them only coming to the foreground in the fast paced stomper ‘Pyromancer’ but just like the progression between their heroes Candlemass debut and sophomore, the trad heavy metal influences that are more prominent on ‘Sahg II’ than on ‘Sahg I’ change the chemistry of this slice of doom distinctly and when combined with the more overt and noticeable heady psychedelia create a cocktail of metal that is just about irresistible. From the Nostalgic Hammond Organ on ‘Starcrossed’ to the sinister campfire hymn to the dark side of the Age of Aquarius that is ‘Escape the Crimson Sun’, ending with the spacey epic album ender that is ‘Monomania’ this is one sophomore release that ends up bettering the bands stunning debut rather than paling in comparison to it.