The arrival of ‘Satan etc.’ marks the end of a five year silence from Gurt. Within a few bars of the album’s opening track ‘The Most Dying Way To Die’, however, it’s as if the UK based riff monsters have never really been away. The perfect re-introduction to the band’s self-proclaimed “party doom” sound, the number presents the heaviness of your average Orange Goblin tune and dresses it up in spangly glam rock platform soles. By delivering a stomper of a riff that sounds like the guts of Black Sabbath playing something from the ChinnyChap universe, they’ve automatically secured their audience’s attention – and they know it, too – before the track progresses with a hugely confident air that allows a sludgy riff punctuated by great stops, and even a Rob Zombie-esque groove to derail the almost danceable moods. It doesn’t seem to matter what twists the music takes, either; every time the main glam stomp returns, it feels like the musical equivalent of the ultimate b-movie bad-ass, coming back stronger after being slapped down by the hero of the piece. The buzzing guitars are relentless with their fat melodies; the drums lock down a ferocious groove, and even a retching vocal can’t kill the feel good vibes. Gurt haven’t just returned – they’ve returned in style.
Tag Archives: doom
RED MESA – Partial Distortions
Red Mesa’s second album ‘The Path To The Deathless’ brought the world a selection of finely crafted riffs during the pandemic lockdown of 2020. At the album’s most melodic, tracks like ‘Death I Am’ injected an extra spookiness into a classic desert rock backdrop; at its most groove laden, Red Mesa blended the driving elements of early Sabbath’s faster offerings with an extra layer of fuzz that looked back to classic Corrosion of Conformity, and when occasionally stretching for heavier sounds, their slow and oppressive riffs showed a love for the mighty Electric Wizard. In terms of taking a bunch of key influences and chucking them into a giant stoner metal stew, it was the kind of album that genre fans would love.
Watch: The Holy Nothing share a new video for ‘Unending Death’
As 2023 began to fade, US doom/stoner metal band The Holy Nothing arrived with a genuine force. Their debut EP, ‘Vol 1: A Profound and Nameless Fear’ brought plenty of heaviness, but the band often worked their riffs in a more inventive way than a lot of other doom-centric acts.
Even on the EP’s most predictable cut, ‘Unending Death’, their gift for delivering a weighty sound was more than clear.
GOAT MAJOR – Ritual
During the dying days of 2023, Welsh stoner/doom band Goat Major made some huge musical waves with their debut EP ‘Evil Eye’. Although its three tracks didn’t really set out to offer genre fans anything especially new, it was clear these lads had a massive set of talents, and clearly understood that taking a well liked style and reworking it flawlessly would be, in many ways, more beneficial than adding new twists and somehow missing the mark. Whichever way you approached it, the EP sounded superb. The riffs were incredibly weighty, the filtered vocal added a Sabbathy ‘Planet Caravan’-esque strangeness, and the rhythm section sounded like a truck. In DIY terms, ‘Evil Eye’ was absolutely peak stoner/doom – a download not to be missed, and a release that set up enormous hopes for an equally good follow up.
VOLT RITUAL – Return To Jupiter EP
Volt Ritual’s self titled album was released in the summer of 2022. Being a wholly DIY release, it didn’t get the full bells and whistles in terms of promotion, but for those who stumbled across it on Bandcamp, it was a record that struck a chord almost immediately. Its seven songs drew heavily from the past, with huge musical debts owed to Black Sabbath, Fu Manchu and Kyuss, but Volt Ritual clearly understood the value in “recycling with love”, and against a lot of competition – let’s face it, the stream of new stoner and doom albums is never ending – it became one of the scene’s best records.