North Carolina sludge metallers Doomsday Profit release In Idle Orbit on Nov. 12. Somewhere along the line, the idea got into my head that the six-song/35-minute offering was an EP. Listening to it, I don’t think it is. Just because it spends its last 10 minutes embroiled in dark ambience with “Bring Out Your Dead,” that’s no less a part of the entirety than the rub-dirt-in-your-eyes sludge-as-half-speed-grindcore that is “Crown of Flies” and “Scryers of the Smoke” earlier on. It breaks down into two 12″ sides, three tracks per, with choice leads interwoven amid the death-stench filth of the riffs and the Carcass-style slit-throat-snarl vocals.

Stoner? Yeah, there’s some of that, and one might accordingly be tempted to put Doomsday Profit in the Bongzilla/Dopethrone school of nihilist weedian sludge. And of course North Carolina hasn’t hurt for sludge since the days of Buzzov*en, Weedeater, Sourvein, etc. If that helps them sell records — CDs, tapes, DLs, whatever — then fine I guess, but to my ears the four-piece seem up to something grimmer in its purpose.

The lurch of “Cestoda” — named for a kind of tapeworm (thanks, internet) — and the echo accompanying the vocals, speaks to the more extreme-metal-born style that marks Doomsday Profit out from the bunch. More Yatra than Toke. That song, as well as “Scryers of the Smoke” before it, appeared on the band’s 2020 Abandon Hope demo, and even compared to just a year ago, In Idle Orbit establishes a cross-release flow that finds an encouraging middle ground in the tempo of “Consume the Remains” to coincide with its largesse — a big, oozing, body-odor-smelling thing, that nonetheless nears psychedelia in its lead guitar sound — and sets “Destroy the Myths” to a march that seems militaristic at first but turns out to be bombed, not bombing.

They space out again toward the finish of “Destroy the Myths,” some slower Iommic solo idolatry serving as an endpoint as the song comes apart like a rotten limb falling off, and maybe it’s that touch of atmosphere throughout that makes the rumble and drone and far-back lead of “Bring Out Your Dead” feel so in-place. If so, all the more kudos to Doomsday Profit for working multiple angles, killing low, building high. Maybe killing high? I don’t know. Definitely those two things. High, and murderous.

Current mood: On a fucking slab. Fluorescent light overhead shines on methodically separated viscera, open eyes staring upward while Doomsday Profit — either in scrubs or not, because does it really matter? — give precious little concern for the mess they’ve made. No big deal, there’ll be plenty of bleach left over to wash it all out after my body’s been bubbled away and the bones turned white ahead of some inevitably ritualized powdering. Play in blood in the meantime.

Nothing means anything. Everything is permitted. Drink plague and piss riffs.

Enjoy:

Doomsday Profit, “Consume the Remains” video premiere

Doomsday Profit unveil their music video for “Consume the Remains,” from the forthcoming album, “In Idle Orbit,” out November 12, 2021.

With “Consume the Remains,” Doomsday Profit merges desert-rock groove with death ‘n’ roll bile. Piling onto the song’s foundational riff and deep groove, the band cakes on with tar-thick sludge before launching it into a dark, psychedelic abyss.

Available on CD/Cassette/Digital @ https://doomsdayprofit.bandcamp.com/

Video by Dark Sprite Videos.

Tracklisting:
1. Crown of Flies
2. Scryers of the Smoke
3. Cestoda
4. Consume the Remains
5. Destroy the Myths
6. Bring Out Your Dead

Doomsday Profit live:
Friday, Nov. 12 – Duluth, GA at Sweetwater Bar & Grill
(with Cosmic Reaper, Dopegoat, Big Oaf)
Saturday, Nov. 13 – Asheville, NC at Static Age Records
(with Cosmic Reaper, TBD)
Sunday, Nov. 14 – Raleigh, NC at The Pour House
(with Cosmic Reaper, WitchTit, Kult Ikon, Nora Rogers, Makhnovist)

Doomsday Profit is:
Pestilence: guitar / vocals
War: lead guitar
Famine: bass / synth / samples
Death: drums / production

Doomsday Profit on Facebook

Doomsday Profit on Instagram

Doomsday Profit on Twitter

Doomsday Profit on Bandcamp

Doomsday Profit website

The difficulty in talking about Monolord at this point is doing so in non-superlative terms. Your Time to Shine is a tale of Monolord and Monolord. There is Monolord, the Gothenburg trio whose riff worship across now-five full-lengths has cast an influential net that spans every continent they’ve touched on tour and then some. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Thomas V. Jäger, bassist Mika Häkki and drummer/engineer Esben Willems, who since their 2014 debut, Empress Rising (discussed here) have done nothing other than dominate the heavy underground, tonally and in work ethic. Monolord the beast. With a sound that seems infinitely imitable — as the lumbering hordes in their significant shadow prove — but unable to be reproduced verbatim.

Your Time to Shine is a tale of this Monolord. With Häkki‘s altar-worthy bass tone and the immediate stomp of Willems‘ drums at their foundation, from the very outset of opener “The Weary,” Monolord offer a clarion to the converted and those who might not know yet they’re ready to be indoctrinated. These slams — they need no context. Do you need to know that 2019’s fourth LP, No Comfort (review here) — also their first for Relapse Records after beginning their career with RidingEasy — was the best album released that year? Nope. By the time Jäger is swagger-riffing through the measure-breaks in the first verse of “The Weary,” it couldn’t matter less. If you’ve never heard Monolord, there is zero barrier to getting on board with Your Time to Shine, and the band’s non-aggro heft only makes them more accessible to a broader audience sphere.

This Monolord runs rampant through the urgent nod of “To Each Their Own,” with rips through a slow-motion triumph in its late-stage lead guitar after crafting a seven-plus-minute progression that leaves one aching to hear it at full-venue volume, tempo trades between pummel and plod after the quiet beginning leads to the first surge executed with fluidity that’s immersive enough to fucking drown in. Not just repetitive, not just heavy, but telling of the other Monolord throughout Your Time to Shine. That second Monolord alluded to earlier, which is waiting in the background to more fully reveal itself after the outright crush of “I’ll Be Damned,” a centerpiece that sets its hook as much in its main riff as its subsequent chorus.

Airy guitar fills out the midsection after a chugging verse opens to the chorus — a simple recitation of the title, teased instrumentally the first time, delivered in full the second — taking the primitivism that so many identify as crucial to who Monolord are and running with it, not repeating past accomplishments or forgetting them but casting a familiar and welcome revelry. The solo winds back to the chorus, that central riff builds out through a finish and sudden stop — the feeling structured, composed, masterful in its way. The superlative Monolord writing pieces they knew they’d be able to take on stage, wherever, whenever. They just might be damned. So might we all if they keep opening chasms as gargantuan as they do here.

Which is where that other Monolord begins its tale. Because Your Time to Shine isn’t just the celebration of impact that the double-kick-and-riff combo after the six-minute mark of “I’ll Be Damned” represents. It’s not just “The Weary.” It’s also the weariness. Side B departs in structure and form from the album’s first three tracks, bringing “Your Time to Shine” (10:40) and “The Siren of Yersinia” (9:24), as two longer-form pieces that are nearly an album unto themselves and whose intentions go beyond what the band have done before in terms of atmosphere and depiction of mood. The title-track is laced with bitter irony, as sad in its procession as it is cavernous in its space, and in its minimalist stretch that ends its second half, it willfully pulls away from the expectation of who Monolord are and what they’ve done to this point in their tenure, pushing outward even from No Comfort in its readiness to be and do something else.

They answer this with a more immediate shove on “The Siren of Yersinia,” but by the time the closer’s first minute is done, it’s being lead by a drifting, standalone guitar and Jäger‘s far-off vocals, making use of the emptiness that might otherwise be filled by the onslaught of a piece like “To Each Their Own.” There’s a hit right around three minutes in and a heavier roll ensues as Häkki and Willems rejoin, but the prevailing sensibility is as close as I’ve ever heard Monolord come to classic-style doom, even amid the Sabbathian foundation of their sound or their earlier Electric Wizard influence. Yersinia, incidentally, is a parasite. A tempo shift returns some bookending cowbell or woodblock from “The Weary,” and even as the band stomp and crash their way to the song and album’s end, the underlying mood is maintained.

This Monolord is the one able to say they feel it too. The anxious uncertainty. The restlessness. The feeling of loss that comes with having lived through this time. If the first half of Your Time to Shine is a reminder of the glories of such weighted aural impact, the second is the reminder of the world in which that impact is happening. No Comfort also took its title from its longest track, and in that and in other ways, Your Time to Shine is a consistent step forward following on from that album and the progression that began to make itself felt on 2017’s Rust (review here) after 2015’s Vænir (review here) affirmed the drive of the debut. But one of this collection’s chief accomplishments is its ability to bring together the two sides — the overwhelming assault and the identifiable expression. They make those sounds and then they use them to fucking say something.

It’s not just about heavy grooves and melodic vocals. Looking back, I’m not sure it ever was. And as much as Monolord are recognizable through that in the influence they’ve had, their work has never been broader than it is here or more refined. At 39 minutes, Your Time to Shine is the shortest album Monolord have ever done, and they did it at Willems‘ own Studio Berserk. Perhaps it is in finding the essence of who they are sound-wise, the Monolord and the Monolord, that they’ve become all the more essential and united in their purpose. See what I mean about the superlatives? Recommended.

Monolord, Your Time to Shine (2021)

Monolord on Facebook

Monolord on Instagram

Monolord on Bandcamp

Monolord webstore

Relapse Records website

Relapse Records on Facebook

I’m not going to be the one to tell you that it doesn’t matter that Albuquerque, New Mexico, duo Gral Brothers — also stylized as GRAL Brothers in honor of combining the first names of component members Greg Williams and Alex McMahon — recorded Dawson Cemetery at least partially in the real-world locale the name of which it bears as its title. Obviously they thought it mattered enough to drag gear into the place and do the thing, and that in itself is value. What I will say is that as you listen to the premiere of “383” below ahead of the download-and-limited-tape-only release’s Halloween arrival, if you’re not actually leaning on some gravestone smoking a clove cigarette like you were when you were 16, it still works.

Ambient experimentalist drone is never going to be everybody’s bag. Nor should it be. It’s not meant to be. If you can put yourself in the right headspace for this, though, the rewards are right there in the listening experience. Like the prior-streamed opener “Underbridge,” “383” is evocative and desolate. The song takes its title from the number of people killed in mine explosions between 1913 and 1923 who are buried there, and what was an actual town surrounding has been gone since the middle of the last century, so yes, with just the cemetery remaining, desolation should be the thematic base from which Gral Brothers are drawing. The site is listed among New Mexico’s “most haunted” — Pennsylvania imprint Perpetual Doom, which is co-releasing Dawson Cemetery with Desert Records, issues a warning that the tapes are as well — and that feel certainly carries over to the wistfulness of the music itself.

But the point here is to go exploring with it and see where it takes you. So do that.

Copious background follows, courtesy of Desert Records.

Enjoy:

Gral Brothers, “383” track premiere

GRAL Brothers ‘Dawson Cemetery’

This is a co-release with Perpetual Doom.

Only available on Bandcamp – digital and cassette tape only.

No streaming services. No distribution.

If you have found your way here, you are on the right path as a true music fan.

https://thegralbrothers.bandcamp.com/album/dawson-cemetery

https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/album/dawson-cemetery

HOW COOL IS THIS?!

The brand new GRAL Brothers album is the true spirit of Desert Records.

Greg (GR) and Alex (AL) took their instruments, microphones, and handheld recording devices to Dawson, NM to record this album in a cemetery.

Dawson Cemetery, in fact.

Then, they took all their recordings and tracks home to Albuquerque, NM and mixed it together with the eerie field recordings they captured.

They got more than just music…listen and hear for yourself.

Side A is the “above” ground side.

Side B is the “below” ground side.

What is it about a cemetery that’s so unsettling?  Silk flowers fading in the sun, cracked weathered granite, stillness and goatheads. Quietness quickly disrupted by creaking gates and birdsong. Moment fading into moment, listening to the metronome of your temple as you consider your mortal fate more and more centered. Feeling small and vulnerable on a timeline that has already seen more seasons than you ever will, and allowing that feeling to oscillate and sustain.

A heavy sadness radiates from Dawson. A lead blanket of wildflowers and stooping bluffs. A small occasional river like the veins of a blue-blood carrying ancient coal dust. A ghost town that’s survived by photos and occasional visitations to swap out silk flowers and offer a moment of solace, realizing you’re standing on top of waves of death and loss that tell a story of a state in which you’d feel alien, even though this place was home to so many. But that’s what this is, listening to a story that you’re provisionally a part of, tangibly apart from. Wondering if in another hundred years people will make this trip out of morbid curiosity and retell this story over a newer, stranger timeline.

We respond to the heaviness, the unknown, the happenchance beauty of bird calls and wrought iron gate squeals. With geophones and field recorders we amplify the voices of this place, we offer a platform to share a story that will continue to be told. Dawson comes to life again, not to descend again into the Stag Canyon Mine but instead to be in the spotlight. One place that holds so much while being so securely out of the way. Five miles north of Highway 64, through Spring Canyon where every season puts on its cyclical display of birth, death and rebirth.

A portable generator gives my amplifier life in a tunnel under the road. A tunnel with names carved in it, dating back to the 1930’s. A tunnel that served as another conduit, offering overtones and reflections from beyond life, echoing the canyon winds and elk calls. The sounds here could never be credited as just our own, instead we’re having a conversation with those who still call Dawson home. In fact, we are really the conduit, responding immediately to what this place makes us feel and following those instincts as far as they’d take us. Transporting us across timelines, relishing temporality and life while honoring death’s certainty and depth. Like stone slowly being worn away by wind and water, we’ve unearthed stories from the Northern New Mexico relic that can now be retold.

-GRAL

Dawson Cemetary

Side A/”Above”
Underbridge
Rail Canyon
Vermijo River
Rork, JD & Trujillo

Side B/”Below”
383
Phelps Dodge
Opera House
Stag Canyon Mine

Album Credits:

All compositions made by Alex McMahon and Greg Williams of GRAL Brothers.

Recorded remotely in Dawson NM at Dawson Cemetery.

Processed, edited and overdubbed in Albuquerque NM by GRAL.

Mastered by Chris Leva.

https://facebook.com/gralbrothersmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/gralbrothersmusic/
https://thegralbrothers.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/desertrecordslabel/
https://desertrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://desertrecords.bigcartel.com/
https://www.instagram.com/perpetualdoom/
https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/
http://www.perpetualdoom.com/

Gral Brothers, Dawson Cemetery tape teaser

Gral Brothers, Dawson Cemetery (2021)

Wisconsin’s Bongzilla make ready to head abroad next year in support of their 2021 album, Weedsconsin (review here). Does the tour start on 4/20? No, but close enough, and you’ll note that they have May 1 listed as an open date in London. Well, that’s the final day of Desertfest London 2022, so don’t be surprised when or if they show up as a late addition to that considerably-packed bill too. Hard to imagine them finding anything other than a welcome reception, frankly.

It’s worth taking a second to appreciate looking at a list of tour dates and thinking it’s more likely they’ll happen than not. Obviously I won’t claim to know what the conditions of anything will be by the time next Spring rolls around, but it doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility that these dates, including the couple TBAs, could go off without a hitch. Hope everybody got their shots. Boosters for all and safe travels.

From the PR wire:

BONGZILLA – EU/UK TOUR 2022

We are so stoked to announce the comeback of the Weedsconsin riffers BONGZILLA.

The band will smash Europe and UK in April/May 2022 bringing their brand new album Weedsconsin.

BUY THE ALBUM HERE:
https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop.htm#HPS186

*** BONGZILLA EU/UK TOUR 2022 ***
FR 08.04.2022 IT BOLOGNA Freakout
SA 09.04.2022 IT VERONA Kroen
SU 10.04.2022 AT SALZBURG Rockhouse
MO 11.04.2022 AT VIENNA Arena
TU 12.04.2022 AT INNSBRUCK p.m.k
WE 13.04.2022 IT TORINO Bunker
TH 14.04.2022 CH MARTIGNY Les Caves Du Manoir
FR 15.04.2022 FR MARSEILLE Jas’ Rod
SA 16.04.2022 ES BARCELONA Upload
SU 17.04.2022 ES MADRID Caracol
MO 18.04.2022 ES SAN SEBASTIAN Dadadaba
WE 20.04.2022 FR TOULOUSE Le Connexion
TH 21.04.2022 FR NANTES La Scene Michelet
FR 22.04.2022 FR LILLE Black LAb
SA 23.04.2022 NL LEIDEN Gebr. De Nobel
SU 24.04.2022 NL SNEEK Bolwerk
MO 25.04.2022 BEL AALST Cinema Aalst
TU 26.04.2022 UK MANCHESTER Deaf Institute
WE 27.04.2022 UK BRISTOL Thekla
TH 28.04.2022 UK SHEFFIELD Record Junkee
FR 29.04.2022 UK GLASGOW Ivory Blacks
SA 30.04.2022 UK LEEDS Boom
SU 01.05.2022 UK LONDON TBA
MO 02.05.2022 FR PARIS TBA
TU 03.05.2022 DE COLOGNE MTC
WE 04.05.2022 DE BERLIN Bi Nuu
TH 05.05.2022 PO WROCLAW Akademia
FR 06.05.2022 DE DRESDEN Chemiefabrik
SA 07.05.2022 DE KARLSRUHE Dudefest
SU 08.05.2022 DE LEIPZIG Conne Island
TU 10.05.2022 FIN HELSINKI Kuudes Linja
WE 11.05.2022 CH ZURIGO Dynamo 250
TH 12.05.2022 CH BASEL Hirscheneck
FR 13.05.2022 SE MALMO Plan B
SA 14.05.2022 DK ESBJERG Fuzztival

BONGZILLA is:
Mike “Muleboy” Makela – bass/vocals
Jeff “Spanky” Schultz – guitars
Mike “Magma” Henry – drums

https://www.facebook.com/Bongzilla/
https://www.instagram.com/bongzillaband
https://bongzilla.bandcamp.com/
https://bongzilla666.com/
heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/

Bongzilla, Weedsconsin (2021)

West Michigan sludge purveyors Bog Wizard will release their admirably filthy second full-length, Miasmic Purple Smoke, on Dec. 3 through The Dregs Records. The band lurch into action in following up their earlier-2021 split with Dust Lord (discussed here) and their Summer 2020 debut, From the Mire, as well as 2018’s tellingly-titled Campaign EP, with a collection of six tracks that runs 41 minutes pulling together willful gruel and a guttural sense of the epic.

To wit, “Barbaria” — premiering below — leads the murky dirge procession with eight minutes that find guitarist/vocalist Ben Lombard, drummer/synthesist/vocalist Harlen Linke and bassist Colby Lowman playing howls of its title lyric off of grim, throaty growls, riffs born of the school of Electric Wizard, Windhand, Monolord, etc., readily plodding in raw tones reminiscent of the great history of underrated Midwestern dirt sludge — consider Fistula and the many branches of their dysfunctional family tree, but more doom-informed than punk in the realization.

Though one says that and has to acknowledge Miasmic Purple Smoke‘s tempo outlier in the penultimate “Stuck in the Muck.” So yeah, dudes can play fast when they want to. They can also Sabbath swing like madmen on the title-track or harness cosmic destruction on 12-minute finale “The Void Beckons” — if you’re wondering where the synth is at, there it be — or churn with early-metal ferocity that they just let fall apart like a rehearsal room jam on “The Rogue” (with Linke and Lowman keeping it going; brilliant) or dare some ambience in the interlude “Grimdark” just ahead of the boogie reset at the start of side B, with its “woo!”s and all.

Fuckery abounds amid stylistic shifts, and that shouldn’t be terribly surprising for a band who’ve branded themselves ‘nerd doom’ and tout their love of Dungeons and Dragons, and so on — context for that Campaign EP — but while they’re having a good time in their D&D-meets-ADHD-doom, Bog Wizard‘s sophomore long-player subtly melds sounds and purposes. Whether it’s in the buried-in-mud riffery of “The Rogue” or the somehow-deeper low end that pervades throughout “The Void Beckons,” their passion for what they’re doing is infectious, and the barebones recording becomes an aesthetic unto itself that, again, is part of a long tradition.

You can see in the quote under the track the band talking about the escapist aspects of a song like “Barbaria,” and Bog Wizard are hardly the first to embrace storytelling as a mode of transporting oneself to another world. That they do so in such delightfully gruesome fashion serves to make Miasmic Purple Smoke even more charming in its dungeon-esque atmosphere. Dungeon doom. Cave doom.

Max experience points for those who listen.

Enjoy:

Bog Wizard, “Barbaria” track premiere

Barbaria, the first single off Miasmic Purple Smoke, Bog Wizard’s sophomore full length release, out Dec 3rd 2021.

What the band has to say about the track:

“The album Miasmic Purple Smoke was written and recorded over the course of the last year. The process of this and playing the music itself has been our bit of escapism to keep sane. Much as we have done in the past with our D&D characters and the stories we put ourselves into, and often write our songs about. Using escapism and fantasy in tumultuous times.

“The song Barbaria is embracing this escapism, and allowing our inner barbarian rage to bubble over a bit. It represents the anger and frustration felt over the last year and a half, and provides a way to vent those darker thoughts. And of course, as is our method of operation, channeling the barbarian characters we have played over the years. Gotta keep the nerd in our nerd doom.”

Bog Wizard is a Doom/ Sludge/ Stoner metal band riffing off the satanic panic era with heavy fantasy/ D&D themes. NERD DOOM.

Track Listing for Miasmic Purple Smoke
1. Barbaria [8:30]
2. The Rogue [10:08]
3. Grimdark [1:46]
4. Miasmic Purple Smoke [7:16]
5. Stuck In The Muck [1:19]
6. The Void Beckons [12:26]

Run time: 41:25

Bog Wizard is:
Ben Lombard (guitar/vox)
Harlen Linke (percussion, synth, vox)
Colby Lowman (bass)

Bog Wizard on Facebook

Bog Wizard on Twitter

Bog Wizard on Instagram

Bog Wizard on Bandcamp

Bog Wizard webstore

The Dregs Records on Facebook

The Dregs Records on Instagram

The Dregs Records on Twitter

The Dregs Records webstore

Whatever else Deathwhite‘s Grey Everlasting might be when it finally surfaces through Season of Mist sometime hopefully circa June 2022, I have little doubt it will be one of the most accurately descriptive titles to see release next year. If you heard 2020’s pre-pandemic opus, Grave Image (review here), you know what I’m talking about. The anonymous, Pittsburgh-based four-piece recorded instrumental tracks with Shane Mayer at Cerebral Audio Productions — who also helmed Grave Image and the band’s 2018 debut, For a Black Tomorrow (review here) — and shifted locales to Mana Recording in Florida to do vocals and mixing with Art Paiz. Some dude named Dan Swanö — no big deal or anything but yes most definitely a big deal — did the master.

No, I haven’t heard it yet, apart from the little mixing snippet posted down under their update below. You think it would be tacky for me to hit up the label this early? Probably. On the other hand, I’ve never really been much for class, and with winter looming, it sure does seem like the kind of thing to keep cold with. Alas, maybe I’ll get there or maybe I’ll chicken out and listen to the last record again instead. Should be interesting to have Grey Everlasting show up in Springtime though, if that’s indeed how it works out.

The band was relatively succinct in confirming completion:

DEATHWHITE – ‘Grey Everlasting’ Album Update

It is with distinct pleasure to share that Grey Everlasting has been handed over to the esteemed Season of Mist for a late spring/early summer 2022 release. While we are sworn to secrecy on the album’s particulars, we can share that it features 11 songs, including an instrumental.

Grey Everlasting is our longest album to date but also includes some of our shortest songs. To coin a term from our U.K. friends, we are properly “chuffed” with the album, but, of course, you, the fair, trusted listening audience, will make your determination in due time. – DW

http://www.facebook.com/deathwhiteofficial
https://deathwhite.bandcamp.com/
http://deathwhite.com/
http://www.season-of-mist.com/
https://www.facebook.com/seasonofmistofficial/

Deathwhite, “No Thought or Memory” mixing snippet

Deathwhite, Grave Image (2020)

Kudos to Swedish trio Hazemaze on signing to Heavy Psych Sounds for the early-2022 release of their third album. The Strängnäs-based three-piece (was Stockholm at one point) released their covers EP, The Paranoid Sessions last Fall playing four well-chosen Black Sabbath tunes — their take on “Electric Funeral” is particularly choice — for a well-received follow-up to their likewise well-received second LP, late-2019’s Hymns of the Damned (review here), and Heavy Psych Sounds is the latest in an impressive string of labels with which the band have worked, including Kozmik Artifactz, Ripple Music and Cursed Tongue.

Don’t be surprised if you start seeing Hazemaze show up on various festival bills and whatnot for 2022, either. I haven’t heard any audio yet, but everything they’ve done has been a step forward from what came before it, and as much as anyone possibly could in this strange era, they have momentum on their side.

More to come. Here’s the PR wire announcement:

Heavy Psych Sounds Records&Booking is really proud to present a new band signing HAZEMAZE

Heavy sabatthian rock from Sweden

We are so stoked to announce that the swedish heavy doom band HAZEMAZE has signed a worldwide deal with Heavy Psych Sounds for the upcoming NEW ALBUM and the reissue of the first two releases !!!

PRESALE + first track premiere: OCTOBER 26th

SAYS THE BAND: We are beyond excited and honoured to announce that we have signed a worldwide deal with Heavy Psych Sounds Records for the release of our third full length LP. Since we started playing together back in 2016, we have always been huge admirers of HPS dedication and their amazing contributions to the heavy underground scene. It’s truly humbling to become a part of the HPS family. 2022 will be the beginning of a new era. Join the unholy sabbath.

BIOGRAPHY

HAZEMAZE is a three piece doomrock band from Strängnäs, Sweden. They formed in the spring of 2016 and started out as a garage rock-band, but their shared admiration for legends such as Black Sabbath, Pentagram, and Cathedral soon set them on a very different path.

As the band matured through the years, the riffs have gradually gotten heavier, the themes darker, and the doom more sinister.

Now, with two critically acclaimed albums under their belt, they are back to join forces with HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS RECORDS for the release of their most multifaceted and pulverizing heavy full-length album to date, out in early 2022.

HAZEMAZE is:
Estefan Carrillo – bass
Nils Einéus – drums
Ludvig Andersson – guitar/vocals

https://hazemazeband.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/hazemazeband/
https://instagram.com/hazemazeband
heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/

Hazemaze, The Paranoid Sessions (2020)

Hazemaze, Hymns of the Damned (2019)

To be perfectly honest with you, I’m afraid to even put a post up saying such a thing because I don’t want to jinx it, but there is a non-zero chance that if Sweden opens its borders to US travelers on Nov. 1, I might be able to go to Fuzz Festival #2 in Stockholm next month. The two-day event runs from Nov. 19-20 and will be headlined by organizers Truckfighters, along with Stoned Jesus, Lowrider and Skraeckoedlan closing out the second night. If it happens — and it’s an IF the size of the ocean between me and Sweden right now — I’d be traveling with the Kings Destroy guys, old friends I’ve not seen for some time — and of course would bring the camera and laptop along for the trip. Fly out Thursday, get in Friday, show Friday and Saturday, fly out Sunday AM is the plan. See? There’s a plan!

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you it’s an utter fantasy at this point, but it’s kept me up at night thinking about it. To see Asteroid or Lowrider — or hell, Kings Destroy — again, or to see Firestone at all, Stoned Jesus, Vokonis, Besvärjelsen for the first time. To party to a Steak set or see Skraeckoedlan and Truckfighters themselves again, and to find out just who The Gristle are that they landed this as their first show ever. There’s a lot to like about the idea, clearly.

The fest finalized its lineup and made day tickets available. You can see the schedule below:

FUZZ FESTIVAL @ Debaser + Bar Brooklyn Nov 19th + 20th

One day passes / Schedule / New bands

The last additions to the line up are:

STONED JESUS
Probably the best band from Ukraine, ever, will enlighten our festival!

VOKONIS
Heavy rock with focused in the doom field.

ROADKILLSODA
Probably the best rock band out of Romaina!

THE GRISTLE
A new fuzzy garage rock duo will do their debut show!

Tickets at TICKSTER: https://www.tickster.com/sv/events/search?q=Fuzz+fest
FUZZORAMASTORE (weekend tickets only): https://eu.fuzzoramastore.com/en/fuzz-fest-ticket-eb.html
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/606699896853794/

SCHEDULE

🤘 = Debaser , 🌵 = Bar Brooklyn

FRIDAY
🤘22:40 – 00:00 TRUCKFIGHTERS
🌵22:00 – 22:40 VOKONIS
🤘21:05 – 22:00 STONED JESUS
🌵20:35 – 21:05 STEAK
🤘19:45 – 20:35 ASTEROID
🌵19:15 – 19:45 FIRESTONE
🤘18:45 – 19:15 ROADKILLSODA
🌵18:15 – 18:45 THE GRISTLE

SATURDAY
🤘22:40 – 00:00 SKRAECKOEDLAN
🌵21:55 – 22:40 SWAN VALLEY HEIGHTS
🤘20:55 – 21:55 LOWRIDER
🌵20:20 – 20:55 KINGS DESTROY
🤘19:45 – 20:20 ENIGMA EXPERENCE
🌵19:15 – 19:45 BESVÄRJELSEN
🤘18:45 – 19:15 ELDEN
🌵18:15 – 18:45 THE DUNES

*Live music from ca 6pm til midnight.
*Afterparty at Bar Brooklyn until 3am.

The Venue is located on the island of Södermalm, in Stockholm. This is a very nice area in the central parts of town.

Get there with subway or bus to ‘Hornstull’ station.

The festival has two stages, one big and one smaller. The smallest stage (Bar Brooklyn) has a limited space and can take up to 250 people standing. If you want to see a band in our smallest stage, come early! First come first served!

https://www.facebook.com/events/606699896853794/
http://www.truckfighters.com/festival/

Truckfighters, Live in Nantes, France, 2019