Release
Date March 6th, 2026 Format CD/LP/Digital Genre Sludge/Doom/Stoner Metal Country United Kingdom
Desert Storm originate from Oxford, England, tearing up the underground since
2007. Over nineteen years, these guys forged an absolute monster of a sound
blending stoner metal, sludge, and doom. Now, they return under the Heavy Psych Sounds banner, dropping "Buried Under
The Weight Of Reason". Recorded at Woodworm
Studios and mixed by Joe Clayton at Nø Studio, this new assault follows up their 2023
release "Death Rattle". Matthew Ryan, Ryan Cole, Elliot Cole,
and Andrew Keyzor construct an aggressive sonic
foundation here.
Listening to "Buried Under The Weight Of Reason" gives you
a seriously punishing experience. The boys unleash primal sounds mixed with
trippy lull, space, and vulnerability. The noise crashes through the speakers,
throwing the chaos of the human condition right in your face. Maniacs blasting Crowbar, Mastodon, or Neurosis will definitely connect with these nine
tracks. The guitars drag you through the mud, switching between crushing doom
sections and spaced-out, atmospheric passages.
The fretwork from Ryan Cole chugs
mercilessly, bringing massive low-end thunder alongside Andrew Keyzor on bass. Elliot Cole
basically destroys the drum kit, dictating a relentless pace during the faster
segments and pulling back into doom-laden grooves when required. Matthew Ryan screams and growls over the chaos, adding
total aggression to the mix. Sometimes the shift between the quiet, melodic
parts and the extreme metal onslaught drops the energy slightly, slowing down
the overall momentum.
Desert Storm deliver a
completely heavy album for anyone craving sludgy destruction. The tracks
provide massive volume and aggressive riffing. Some moments drift into quieter
spaces, stripping away the distortion before diving right back into the
madness. "Buried Under The Weight Of Reason" brings the goods for
metalheads wanting total sonic annihilation.
Release
Date March 6th, 2026 Format Vinyl/CD/Cassette/Digital Genre Sludge/Stoner/Doom Metal, Death
Metal Country USA
Hibernaut is a heavy hybrid of doom, stoner,
and sludge metal hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah. The band formed in 2021
when guitarist/vocalist Dave Jones (Subrosa, Dwellers, Oxcross)
and drummer Zach Hatsis (Subrosa, Dwellers) reconnected creatively after years
of collaboration. Joined by bassist Josh Dupree and lead guitarist Matt Miller
(Thunderfist,
Oldtimer),
Hibernaut
found their stride channeling decades of collective experience into a powerful,
riff-laden sound. Their 2023 debut album "Ingress" was recorded with
producer Andy
Patterson and landed at #15 on The Doom Charts. Their second full-length album,
"Obsidian Eye", released on July 11, 2025, marked a significant leap
for the band, earning #7 on that month’s Doom Charts.
Face Pulp started officially in October of 2021 in Flagstaff,
Arizona. The band features Steve on vocals, MT on guitar, Landyn on
bass, and Randy
on drums. Face
Pulp mixes genres of hardcore punk, grindcore, thrash, and hints of
OSDM. In 2023 they released their full length "Eye Grabbing Detail"
and were pivotal in booking the "Burning Pines" festival. Throughout
2025 they played consistently all over the region, ran a southwest tour, and
opened for acts like Gatecreeper, Soulfly, and Go Ahead And Die. With big
tour plans for 2026 in the midwest and Europe, they joined forces with Hibernaut
for this split LP.
This split LP plays out like a bar
fight between a giant and a meth-head. It brings together two bands that have
no business sharing a stage, yet somehow, the carnage makes sense. On side A, Hibernaut
drags the listener into the mud. These guys have been around the block in bands
like Subrosa,
and you can hear that experience in the distortion. They do not rush anything.
The riffs roll out slow and thick, burying the room in a wall of fuzz. It is
heavy, smoked-out doom that rumbles the floorboards. They keep the tempo down
and the volume up, creating a massive, suffocating noise that demands volume.
Then you flip the album, and Face Pulp
kicks the door in. The Arizona crew drops the doom vibes entirely for a
spazzed-out assault of grind and hardcore. The drums sound like they are
falling down stairs, and the vocals are pure screeching hostility. It is
chaotic and abrasive. Where the first half of the split tries to crush you with
weight, Face
Pulp tries to stab you with speed. The contrast is jarring, snapping you
out of the stoner trance and forcing you into the pit.
The production on this release is
appropriately filthy. Neither band sounds over-produced or sterile. The drums
sound like drums, and the guitars sound like chainsaws. What's Left Records
put this out on vinyl, and the analog format suits the griminess of the music.
It is raw, loud, and honest. This is not high art; it is a noise complaint
waiting to happen.
This split is a solid addition to
the shelf for anyone who collects underground heavy music. It captures two
distinct scenes in the American West and mashes them together without apology.
It is not going to change the world, but it will definitely annoy the
neighbors. It is a good, heavy listen that delivers on its promises without any
pretentious nonsense.
Release Date 20.02.2026 Format LP/CD/MC/Digital Genre Sludge/Doom
Metal Country
Portugal
Soul
Of Anubis is a power
duo formed in 2010 from the North of Portugal. Their music is a blast on stage
with ferocity of sound that goes from thrash to sludge, capturing doom and
post-metal at same time, performing energetic and contagious live acts. With
several concerts in the underground scene and festivals in Portugal and across
borders, they created their own fan base and captured the most distracted of
this genre, delivering to the public not only intense performances that provoke
a certain magnetism, but that lead them to be outside of themselves.
It is always cool when two dudes
make enough noise to sound like five. Soul Of Anubis
brings a massive wall of fuzz on "Ritual" that proves you do not need
a bass player if your guitar rig is loud enough. This is sludge metal that
drags its knuckles on the ground. Hugo Ferrão
handles the riffs and the screaming while Rui Silva
beats the hell out of the drums. They stick to a formula that works for them,
mixing slow, miserable doom sections with faster thrash beats when the energy
needs a kick.
The band built this album around the
idea of dying and coming back, inspired by Egyptian myths and personal loss.
You can hear that struggle in the vocals. The screaming sounds like someone
actually fighting off demons in the underworld. The songs have a darkness to
them that matches the subject matter perfectly. It sounds angry and desperate.
They channel the exhaustion and mental battles of the last few years into the
riffs, making the whole thing feel heavy in more ways than just the tuning.
Getting Keijo
Niinimaa from Rotten Sound on "Mind
Crusher" was a smart move. His voice adds an extra layer of grime to the
mix. The rest of the songs follow that lead without dropping the ball. They
don't mess around with boring jams that go nowhere. These guys know when to
speed up and when to let the feedback ring out. The tracks fit together well to
tell that story of going down into the darkness and clawing your way back out
to the light.
"Ritual" is a cool release
for anyone who digs heavy, down-tuned music. It has plenty of aggression and a
dark atmosphere that sticks with you. Soul Of Anubis
delivers the goods without trying to be something they are not. It is a loud,
angry album that serves as a fitting soundtrack for bad days. If you like your
metal raw and full of hate, give this a spin.
Release
Date: November 21st, 2025
Format: Digital
Genre: Doom/Sludge Metal, Hardcore
Country: USA
Born
Of Plagues come from
Baltimore, Maryland, a city that knows its grime and does not bother hiding it.
This four piece is stacked with veterans from punk, hardcore and doom corners,
people who already paid their dues in sweaty rooms and busted amps. Their thing
is simple, heavy music first, scene politics last. “Dead Endings” is their
second full length, self released, and it sounds like a band that has lived
with these songs for a long time and let them rot properly before letting them
out.
“Dead Endings” was written over
almost five years, and you can hear that time etched into the riffs. This is
gothic doom and sludge with a hardcore spine, miserable, angry, and stubborn.
The album drags social garbage and personal damage into the light and smears it
all over thick, dragging guitar lines and sudden bursts of violence. Nothing
here sounds rushed or careless, it is rough, blunt, and clearly obsessed with
heaviness above all else.
The writing has shifting gears, slow
suffocating sections collapse into faster, nastier moments, then fall back into
crawling misery. Influences are obvious if you know your doom and your old
metal, but they are not treated like museum pieces. Sabbath
sized grooves; crusty death doom and punk hostility all bleed together until
the whole thing feels filthy and confrontational. It never sits still long
enough to get boring, even when it digs deep into the dirge.
Vocals come off as pissed, worn
down, and honest, barking and roaring like someone who has had enough of
pretending things are fine. The production keeps everything raw and oppressive,
no shine, and no fake thickness. Guitars grind, the rhythm section keeps the
whole thing ugly and grounded, and the album stays locked into that nasty
atmosphere all the way through.
At 55 minutes, “Dead endings” asks
for patience, and sometimes it tests it. A few stretches linger longer than
they should, and trimming some fat would have sharpened the blow. That said,
the album never collapses under its own size. It keeps swinging, dragging you
through its bleak crawl until the final track cuts out, and leaving that
familiar post doom exhaustion.
“Dead endings” is a solid, bruising
listen that delivers what it promises. It is not an easy record, and it is not
meant to be. Born of plagues sound committed to ugly heaviness and
uncomfortable themes, and this album prove they have more to say. If the next
one tightens things up, they could easily push this sound into meaner territory.
Stone Nomads is a power
trio from Houston, Texas, formed in 2021 and rooted deep in doom and sludge
metal. Built by Jon Cosky and Jude Sisk and completed by Ben Wozniak, the band has steadily grown through releases that
favor heaviness, emotional pressure and a strong underground ethic. After two
well received albums, they return with their third full length, aiming squarely
at larger, darker ground.
Long time I had to
listen to such great doom metal album, and "Empires Of Stone" earns
that reaction without effort. This is a massive, slow crushing work that taps
into grief, fear and social tension, turning them into thick riffs and grim atmosphere.
The album sounds heavy in a physical way, but also heavy in meaning, built on a
steady pace that lets every part sink in. Fans of BLS
and Down will recognize that thick Southern
weight and that grounded, rough energy that avoids flash and sticks to
substance.
The songwriting stays
focused on creating pressure and scale. Tracks like "Lost In The
Storm", "Valley Of Souls" and the title track stretch out with
patience, letting riffs repeat and deepen instead of rushing to the next idea.
There is a darker melodic edge running through the album, especially on songs
like "Death Adder", which carries a strong doom lineage and a clear
nod to classic Paradise Lost (“Shades Of God” doom era) without copying
it. "Mount Aras" (ultra heavy monolith reminding Celtic Frot and Obituary)
brings in colder, harsher shades that recall early extreme metal influences,
adding extra grit to the overall sound.
Lyrically, the album
circles around mortality, personal loss and social decay, never sounding
abstract or distant. There is a sense of real life pressure behind the words,
tied closely to the band’s recent history. That connection gives the album a
serious tone, not dramatic, not decorative, just heavy and honest. The
production keeps everything grounded and thick, avoiding shine and letting the
raw character stay intact.
"Empires Of
Stone" stands as a strong statement of modern doom and sludge rooted in
tradition and lived experience. It is an album that rewards time and attention,
offering depth without excess and heaviness without distraction. For listeners
drawn to slow burning, oppressive metal with Southern weight and classic doom
spirit, this release hits hard and stays there. One of the best doom/sludge albums you'll hear this year.
Release Date: November
7th, 2025
Format: Digital/CD
Genre: Noise Rock, Mathcore, Sludge Metal, Hardcore
Country: USA
Old Deer is a four piece from Denver, Colorado, active in the U.S. underground
heavy scene since the early 2020s. After making noise with the 2024 EP
“Something In The Water”, the band moved quickly toward a broader and harsher
sound, shaped by noise rock, mathcore, sludge metal and hardcore traditions.
Old Deer returns with
their debut full length “Someone In The House”, an album built around tension,
instability and a constant sense of threat. The album circles around unease
rather than release, pushing jagged rhythms, abrasive textures and sudden
shifts that keep the listener alert. This is aggressive music that prefers
anxiety over comfort, closer to controlled chaos than brute force.
The writing pulls from several heavy directions without settling into
one lane. Sludge and doom tones sink into mathcore patterns, while noise rock
abrasion and post hardcore urgency sit right at the surface. Tracks like “The
Hatch” and “Take It All” underline this approach, switching pace and pressure
often, with little interest in easing the listener into what comes next.
Vocally, Matt Conlee is a major
factor in how the album works. His harsh delivery cuts through the mix with raw
intensity, then drops into darker melodic lines that add another layer of
tension instead of relief. The instruments mirror this behavior, bouncing
between hardcore impact and tangled, almost jazz informed movement, giving the
record an unstable and restless character.
“Someone In The House” does not aim for comfort or accessibility, and
that choice defines its impact. The album stretches its ideas across a long
running time, sometimes pushing patience, but it also rewards focus with
moments of real menace and originality. As a debut full length, it shows a band
expanding their sound with ambition, even if not every idea reaches the same
level of focus.
Sweden’s Slôdder has
always walked into the room with a snarl instead of a smile. Formed in 2016,
the band pushes a harsh, unfiltered sludge sound that owes plenty to the
filth-caked lineage of EyeHateGod, Iron Monkey and the rest of the underground swamp
dwellers. Their new album “Narcissist” follows 2023’s “A Mind Designed To
Destroy Beautiful Things” and arrives loaded with personal scars. The band
openly talks about the rough years behind them, friendships gained and lost,
and the emotional rubble that shaped these ten tracks. Slôdder
remains locked into their mission, soaked in frustration, depression,
anxiety, fear and anger.
“Narcissist”
moves with a raw and mean spirit, carrying the sort of unvarnished ugliness
that sludge metal thrives on. The guitars grind forward like machinery that has
not been serviced in decades, vocals spit venom with no sense of restraint, and
the rhythm section moves with a stubborn heaviness that refuses to lighten. The
sound is uncomfortably close, massive in volume, and shaped for listeners who
want their sludge as harsh as possible. There is no shine here, only pressure
and hostility. It suits them perfectly.
The
songwriting stays direct and unfiltered. Shorter bursts hit with immediate
aggression, while longer tracks drag the listener through hostile emotional
terrain. Instead of drifting into filler or wandering around, the album keeps
its anger locked in place. Even when Slôdder stretches
a song, they do it with the same sour intent, keeping a steady grip on the
atmosphere. Every track is soaked in grime and irritation, and that steady
ugliness becomes the record’s signature.
The
production keeps everything in close quarters. Joona
Hassinen captures the band with a raw, street-level punch, loud enough
to rattle bones. Everything is right in front of you, exactly where this kind
of music belongs. For a band preparing to mark their tenth anniversary,
“Narcissist” shows they know what they want to express and they are not shying
away from the darker corners of their own lives.
Slôdder doesn’t
widen their scope here, they intensify it. “Narcissist” is a bitter, angry
album built for listeners who want sludge that stares them down instead of
trying to charm them. It may not shake the ground beneath the genre’s
foundation, but it brings the band’s personality to the front with harsh
honesty. The bitterness is real, the sound is ugly, and the intent is
unmistakably theirs. For a band heading into 2026 with plans to bring this
noise on stage, the album works as a solid warning of what is coming.
Azell, the Louisville duo of David and Courtney Napier,
have been hammering their way through the underground since 2022, building
their own planet-sized niche in heavy music. Their debut “Death Control”
already hinted at something massive brewing, a collision of doom metal, sludge,
and cosmic horror. With “Astralis”, they take that vision further into the
void, crafting a concept album that’s tied to an accompanying novella. The
story, dripping with dark science fiction and existential dread, adds depth to
the experience, but it’s the music that does the real storytelling, slow,
crushing, and absolutely unrelenting.
The opening
track “From The Womb Of Oblivion” lays down Azell’s
signature atmosphere: thick riffs that move like tectonic plates and vocals
that alternate between venomous growls and cavernous roars. The production,
handled by David Napier himself, makes
everything sound enormous, as if the guitars were recorded inside collapsing
stars. The pacing is merciless, with songs such as “Monolithic Terror” and “When
Darkness Unfolds” pushing forward like massive machinery grinding through
cosmic ruins.
Azell’s strength
lies in how they use repetition as hypnosis. They don’t rush; they drag the
listener through colossal grooves, each riff sinking deeper than the last. “Waves
Of Remembrance” and “The Crumbling Facade” conjure imagery of decay and
interstellar solitude, while “Hostage To The Machine” strikes with shorter
precision, almost punk in its directness before returning to the suffocating
sprawl that defines the album.
By the time
“The End Is Inevitable” and “Time Slows To Nothing” arrive, the sense of
collapse is complete. The latter is especially haunting, as if the album itself
is dissolving into silence. Every instrument sounds like it’s being dragged
into gravity’s final pull. Even the small touches, a sudden saxophone or an
echoing sample, add a ghostly shimmer before everything fades into darkness.
The
production is massive but not overblown, the vocals have a rawness that keeps
the music human, and the riffs are titanic. “Astralis” is the sound of the
world ending in slow motion, a sludge metal odyssey that doesn’t just describe
oblivion, it drags you straight into it.
After four albums that have carved deep scars into the European
post-metal scene, Abraham returns with
“Idsungwüssä”, their fifth full-length and the final chapter in their
apocalyptic trilogy. Known for their bleak atmospheres and philosophical
undertones, the Swiss collective once again step into the void with a record
that sounds as if it’s written from the ashes of humanity itself.
Their previous
releases, especially “Débris De Mondes Perdus” and “Look, Here Comes The
Dark!”, were vast explorations of ruin and rebirth. “Idsungwüssä” continues
that path but shifts the perspective, away from Earth and into a cosmic
wilderness, where desolation turns into transcendence. The album’s concept
follows a parallel thread to their earlier works, closing the circle not
through repetition, but through expansion.
The production, shaped
between late 2024 and early 2025, captures an intensity that feels lived-in.
You can almost sense the fatigue and determination of the band as they balanced
daily life with creative struggle. This pressure becomes part of the music. The
sound is enormous, thick layers of guitars stacked in an unusual way, left and
right channels in unison while the center bursts through with a third voice.
The result is colossal and suffocating, drenched in reverb that turns riffs
into waves of distortion.
Vocals delivered in
Swiss-German give the album a unique edge, blending anguish with a kind of
distant ritualism. When they rise from beneath the instrumental mass, they
sound less human and more elemental, like something screaming from the void.
Between the heavier passages, melodic interludes and fragile moments of calm
appear, not as relief but as emotional depth. The band’s use of organ, Moog,
and additional keys brings an eerie, almost liturgical texture, like an ancient
signal sent through space.
“Idsungwüssä” unfolds
as a journey rather than a collection of songs. It stretches across despair and
transcendence, moving from grinding sludge passages to ethereal stretches that
dissolve into silence before another storm returns. It’s not an easy listen,
but that’s precisely its strength. This is music made to confront the listener
rather than comfort them.
By the album’s closing
moments, there’s a sense of finality, a strange peace among ruins. Abraham don’t simply continue their saga, they
bring it to an end with conviction, beauty, and an honesty that few bands in
post-metal can claim. It’s an album that demands patience and rewards
immersion. A powerful and immersive finale from a band unafraid to dig deep
into the bleakest corners of existence, “Idsungwüssä” stands as a fitting
closure to Abraham’s trilogy, harsh, human,
and haunting.
Malota formed in
Italy during the 2010s, blending heavy riffs with politically charged lyrics
and raw emotional intensity. Their sound began with clear rock roots, but over
time, the group evolved toward darker, more oppressive territories.
“Scapegoat,” their second full-length release through Go
Down Records, arrives four years after their last EP and presents a band
fully immersed in despair and confrontation.
The album is built on
slow, crushing rhythms and a heavy, metallic tone that dominates from start to
finish. The guitars rumble with a thick, suffocating presence, while the vocals
sound almost torn from the throat, packed with anguish and anger. “Scapegoat”
abandons any trace of their earlier rock energy for something far more
unforgiving, this is music that grinds and drags like a march through emotional
wreckage.
Lyrically, Malota does not hide behind metaphor. Their words
strike directly at political decay, human cruelty, and historical wounds.
“Nermin,” for instance, recounts the horrors of Srebrenica in 1995, echoing one
of Europe’s darkest postwar moments. The storytelling feels brutally honest,
refusing to comfort or soften the truth. The band’s view of humanity is bleak
but painfully grounded in reality, a reflection of a world that keeps repeating
its mistakes.
Across “Scapegoat,”
the tone remains oppressive but purposeful. The songs unfold with a steady
sense of weight and atmosphere, occasionally lifting through sections of
restrained melody that only deepen the surrounding heaviness. “...But Deliver
Us From Pain” and “Until The Next Nuclear Holocaust” embody the album’s
emotional and sonic extremes, combining fury, sorrow, and hopelessness in a
seamless, punishing tide.
Malota’s shifts toward a darker metallic approach gives
“Scapegoat” a sense of honesty and urgency. The production is raw and natural,
leaving the rough edges intact. This is not music meant for comfort or escape, it’s
confrontation through sound. “Scapegoat” stands as a heavy and
thought-provoking release, drenched in human suffering and political awareness.
It may not offer light or redemption but its sincerity and emotional gravity
make it a worthy listen for those drawn to the darker side of metal’s emotional
spectrum.
Formed in 2008 in the wild lands of Central
Brittany, Stonebirds carved a unique path
through the European heavy underground. Their sound grew from the damp soil of
rural decay and isolation, a reflection of landscapes haunted by both myth and
modern neglect. The trio’s early work, starting with "Into The Fog… And
The Filthy Air", captured a haunting mix of sludge, psychedelia, and
progressive textures. As the years passed and their music darkened through
albums like "Time" and "Collapse and Fail", Stonebirds
refined their craft into something raw, spiritual, and distinctly human.
"Perpetual
Wasteland" marks their farewell, and it feels like a final storm rising
over their long-buried roots. The album unfolds with the patience of erosion.
Riffs crash and fade like waves on cold stone, while the vocals wander between
despair and fragile hope. The production by Cyrille
Gachet gives everything a harsh brightness, balancing heaviness with
space, as if the air itself is vibrating with the last remnants of life in a
collapsing world.
The music drags
you through its wreckage, showing glimpses of beauty where only ruin should
exist. The guitars sound colossal, but the real power lies in the slow,
deliberate rhythm of the songs. Each part builds toward release, not in fury,
but in resignation. It’s the sound of a band that has looked deep into the
abyss and decided to make peace with it.
"Perpetual
Wasteland" doesn’t rely on excess. It’s focused, emotionally heavy, and
elegantly shaped. The trio’s chemistry is remarkable, every hit of the drum,
every bass rumble, every haunting chord is like the echo of years spent
perfecting a single, sorrowful language. There’s a meditative undertone running
through it, as if the band is saying farewell not only to music but to
something larger, maybe even the world that inspired it.
As a final
chapter, this album captures Stonebirds’
vision in its purest form. It’s not an easy listen, but it’s deeply human,
filled with despair and a faint shimmer of light behind the darkness. "Perpetual
Wasteland" stands as a fitting monument to Stonebirds’
legacy, solemn, crushing, and strangely beautiful, like the ruins left behind
after the storm.
Cranial’s return with “Structures” arrives as a
release born from exhaustion, loss and perseverance. The German quartet, formed
from the ashes of Omega Massif, has always
treated heaviness as more than a matter of volume. Their music is a
psychological gravity, a reflection of the real world’s collapse and
reconstruction. This time, the personal context surrounding the band’s writing,
grief, the death of a friend and former drummer, broken ties, has shaped an
album that sounds wounded, but not defeated.
The album
moves through long arrangements that demand patience. “Guidelines” and
“Structures” stretch across nearly twelve minutes each, moving like tectonic
plates grinding slowly against each other. The impact riffs written for drag
and pulse, pushing forward through iteration and gradual layering. “Into The
Abyss” is the most haunting moment, built on a deep sense of absence, while
“The Beauty In Aggression” compresses everything into its most direct form,
closing the album with a surge that sounds like release rather than rage.
The
production by Jens Siefert gives the
instruments a massive physical presence. Guitars sound thick and weathered,
while the rhythm section acts as an anchor through long passages of tension. Julian Weidhaus’ vocal performance is strained,
human, imperfect, exactly as it should be for music written under emotional
pressure. The mastering by Brad Boatright amplifies
the depth of the low end, keeping the sound massive without drowning in excess.
“Structures”
ain’t an easy listen. It’s long, patient, and emotionally heavy, but its
intensity serves a clear purpose. The band channels personal loss into sound in
a way that’s honest and grounded. The atmosphere is dark, but within that
darkness there’s a reflection.
This isn’t Cranial trying to outdo their earlier work, it’s a
continuation of their story, written with scars and fatigue. The album demands
full attention, and rewards it with raw sincerity and depth. For listeners who
connect with the meditative side of post-metal, “Structures” will resonate
strongly. For others, it may feel overwhelming but that’s part of its power. A
heavy, slow-burning chapter from a band that turns personal tragedy into
monumental sound.
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