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.
Tag Archives: doom
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.
GOAT MAJOR – Evil Eye EP
A little west of Birmingham – often said to be the birthplace of metal – their lies an entire country with an almost equally rich musical heritage in terms of rock music. In the 70s, Wales birthed the often overlooked Man, the underrated Budgie, and the should’ve been huge Lone Star. Lone Star’s second album ‘Firing On All Six’, whilst perhaps not as big as monolithic works by Deep Purple, is an easy match for any of the great material released by UFO or Uriah Heep. It’s been even less documented that the country has actually spawned a healthy stoner and doom metal scene. Spearheaded by the former Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard (later MWWB) and Dope Smoker, there are a truckload of good, heavy riff-makers filling an opulent Welsh underground in the twenty first century.