With expectations very high in the doom underground, Un have finally unleashed their second album, “Sentiment.” As expected, Un have risen above the cesspool of doom bands with their crushingly heavy, emotional doom. The band again wrap themselves in funeral doom, post-metal, and sludge shrouds, but its their mastery usage of emotional fraught vocals and slow guitar passages that is their forte. Each song just drips in its own gripping melancholic and sorrowful vibe. Somehow, Un under this overwhelming weight of music, emotions, and lyrical themes, have been able to convey an uplifting and redemptive album.

https://unbandtl.bandcamp.com/album/sentiment

Bismarck is a new Norwegian doom band, and with their debut album “Urkraft,” they infused themselves into the collective of great up and coming stoner bands. Not falling too far sonically from the Sleep tree, the band delves into many stylings of doom, like stoner, psychedelic, and sludge. However, where Bismarck’s greatness really shines is their ability to ride a swaggering warm fuzzed groove and beat into submission.

https://bismarck.bandcamp.com/album/urkraft

Crushingly heavy and dense. Gorgeously serene and beautiful. Yob is love.

“Unsettling Whispers” is a fierce, mid tempo black metal album that just oozes class and grimness. Gaerea, a Portuguese band, wield an amazing ability to pen catchy and hummable, yet intricate black metal songs. Songs are full of mostly mid tempo rhythms but occasionally veer into blazing fast territory and the band isn’t afraid to add in sooty thickness. “Unsettling Whispers,” is an incredible debut album that brims with a black metal vitality and adventurousness that is sometimes lost in bands nowadays.

https://gaerea.bandcamp.com/

Spaceslug, a stoner Polish band, return with their own slice of spacious and sprawling stoner metal. With their third album, “Eye the Tide,” Spaceslug haven’t diverged much from their prior sounds of their last album, but have instead refined their hypnotic stoner doom with more progressive, psychedelic sludge nuances. Spaceslug trawls through some glorious swirling fuzzed out songs and definitely establish themselves into the pantheon of stoner gods.

https://spaceslug.bandcamp.com/album/eye-the-tide

BlackWater HolyLight make their debut album playing a heady style of experimental psychedelic rock, but it’s the simplicity and catchiness of all their songs that could easily make them arena rock goddesses. Their songs are either drenched in huge chime-like guitars, swirling keyboard tones, or huge fuzzy riffs that are counterpointed by exquisite, airy vocals. BlackWater HolyLight have created such a beguiling and charming album of psychedelic rock on their debut album that sounds so familiar to a slew of past bands but its remarkable in inventiveness and uniqueness.

https://blackwaterholylight.bandcamp.com/album/blackwater-holylight

Americana doom. Who would have thought doom metal would have a subgenre for Americana roots rock? Yet along comes Huntsmen with the album “American Scrap,” and have birthed a whole new subgenre and also just an incredible album. The band mix earnest and plaintive vocals of Uncle Tupelo along with multi-harmonic vocals, acoustic jaunts, and layers upon layers of heavy, burly, crushing riffs. However, it is the songs and story telling, that at times harken back to Slint in their vividness, that distinctly establish this as an Americana doom album. With songs about America’s coal mining industry, apocalyptic endtimes, personal hardship, and grit that are coupled to gorgeous melodies, dark grooves, and thunderous doom. “American Scrap” is an invigorating and uplifting album full of sadness and hope played out through magnificent gritty songs.

https://huntsmen.bandcamp.com/album/american-scrap

“What if Black Sabbath played Afrobeat?” states the promotional ad copy from Here Lies Man’s record company. This is a most apt description that surprisingly isn’t just record company hype and promotion. However, instead of the songs being guitar driven, they are propelled by a rhythmically complex backbone of percussions and keyboards. The guitar sound is sometimes so blown out and fuzzy that it coalesces with the keyboards into a spidery, badass, groovy, funk beast. Listening to “You Will Know Nothing,” is like cruising around town in the 1980’s listening to the radio, but the station transmissions overlap with odd genre collisions of heavy metal, pop, electronic, dance and funk.

https://hereliesman.bandcamp.com/

Epic, spiritually enthralling doom. We rise.

https://churchdoom.bandcamp.com/album/light-will-consume-us-all

“Double Negative,” was totally unexpected, unwanted, and overlooked by me. I really didn’t need another conventional Low album and my expectations upon reading a few reviews of the album biased me to overlook and shun the album. Boy, was I stupid and wrong, and thank my metal brother Valecnik for shaming me into giving this album a chance. “Double Negative,” is an extremely forward thinking album that is sonically ambitious, jarring, and groundbreaking album for Low. The band has sonically deconstructed their slow-core pop songs into glitchy expositions and soundscapes, however the core Low bedrock sound of hauntingly beautiful harmonies and simple slow songs are still present under all the sonic textures and aural disintegration. After a 25 year history, it is incredible that Low has crafted such an astounding album that defies description and is one of their most relevant and astounding albums of their career.

https://lowtheband.bandcamp.com/album/double-negative

Wallowing in utter despair was never so glorious. Waves upon waves of monolithic, funeral doom wash over the senses as slow forlorn melodies lap at the soul as its transgressed to the next level.

https://forn.bandcamp.com/