Tag Archives: stoner

THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR: A NEW YEAR’S EVE LOCK IN 2025

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We’ve reached the end of another year, and the Real Gone Singles Bar has gone from strength to strength. As is always the case, we’ve received far more submissions over the past six months than we could possibly hope to cover, and ended up with a lot of great tracks that just didn’t find a home in the original weekly columns. Some things are too good to pass by, though, so as is traditional, we’ve rounded up twenty of the best tracks that didn’t get covered upon release and created the Singles Bar New Year’s Eve Lock In! We’ve got a great new wave inspired track, a couple of absolute bangers from the metal world, a little Americana, some jazzy yacht rock, funk, power pop and goth. With the help of a couple of singer-songwriters along the way, we hope there’s something in this selection for almost everyone as we count down to midnight…

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Watch: Oreyeon relive ‘Echoes Of Old Nightmares’ in new video

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On their 2019 LP, Oreyeon delivered a set of songs driven by absolutely crushing riffs. Blending the stoner/fuzz of classic Kyuss into a doomier musical landscape, the record’s best songs were unrelentingly heavy, and yet a world of vocal filters and other tricks sometimes gave their sound a deep psych edge which kept things interesting. Over the next few years, Oreyeon would become an important fixture within the Italian doom and sludge scenes. By the time they recorded ‘Equations For The Useless’ in 2022, a much bigger recording budget gave them a slightly clearer sound, but without making their material especially more accessible. If anything, it cemented the band’s reputation as one of Europe’s finest underground metal bands.

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PALE HORSE RITUAL – Diabolical Formation

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In October 2024, Pale Horse Ritual released the ‘Enchantress’ EP, a brilliant four song slab of metal that blended doom, stoner and deep psych to create something that sounded like the missing link between ‘Volume 4’ era Sabbath, the heavier moments of Monster Magnet’s best jams and Goat Ritual. It may have only been short, but for lovers of a fuzzy stoner riff, it proved to be an essential listen, and one that stoked up excitement for a follow up.

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YAWNING MAN – Pavement Ends

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In the year leading up to this album’s release, guitarist Gary Arce kept himself more than busy. With the other members of Yawning Man, he released a third album of improvised material with Yawning Balch, two albums of fantastic material under the name SoftSun with Superlynx’s Pia Isaaksen, and also worked with Big Scenic Nowhere, a doomy stoner band which also featured Yawning Man’s Bill Stinson and Fu Manchu/Yawning Balch guitarist Bob Balch.

Regardless of his many activities, for most, it’ll be his associations with desert rock band Yawning Man that spring to mind first, despite their output being rather sporadic. The band’s eighth studio record ‘Pavement Ends’ finds Arce in great musical form, and following 2023’s ‘Long Walk of The Navajo’ takes a welcome step back towards shorter and more accessible arrangements.

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SOFTSUN – Eternal Sunrise

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The debut album from desert rock duo SoftSun was one of the greatest releases of 2024. Guitarist Gary Arce had already put his name to some really enjoyable work with improvisational collective Yawning Balch over the course of the year leading up to SoftSun’s unveiling but, as part of that duo, there was something truly special about the way he was able to weave deep psych and desert rock sounds against Pia Isaaksen’s vocals. It was a release that set a high bar, but also one that suggested a “lightning in a bottle” moment; that a follow up might not follow especially quickly…or even at all.

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