[PLEASE NOTE: These are not the results of the year-end poll, which ends in January. If you haven’t contributed your picks yet, please do so here.]

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Terrible year, good music. Not the first time that’s happened. Look anywhere in the world and there’s unrest to be found. I have started this paragraph three separate times now with some discussion of my country’s willful embrace of corporate, christian nationalist fascism, and each time have had to go back and restart, because by the time you’re done asking “what’s the point of anything?” you realize you don’t have an answer to that question. Better not to ask.

But in what has unquestionably been the dumbest 12 months I’ve lived through as regards the outside world has made a salve of human creativity, and as our techbro-warlord fiefdoms are laid out and generative AI is pushed in place of human artistry — the two could coexist, easily, just not in a world this stupid — making art whether it’s overtly political or not feels more like resistance against a cultural numbing out than it ever has in my 44 years.

We celebrate the human spirit, then, when we celebrate human creativity. The nonphysical part of ourselves and the connections we make across land, space and time through various forms of art and expression. I believe artificial intelligence can have a place in this world, I just wish I could convince it to empty the dishwasher.

Music holds us together. Or to be more honest, it holds me together. On these days where the horrors don’t seem to end, where cruelty and unkindness are held as virtues and care is seen as a weakness, where hateful rhetoric is held as common sense, where grown-ass men roll around in big-boy pickup trucks and wave silly flags like the spoiled five-year-olds they are mentally, where we kill each other for sport, being able to immerse, to put my head somewhere else, to get away from it for just a little while, has been a gift. It is difficult to believe there was ever an optimistic vision of the future in my country. In the face of rising isolationism and kleptocratic, anticonstitutional governmental improprieties, limitless corruption, endless drudging stupidity, I see no reason for one now beyond escapism.

So in these wretched times, love all you can love. Everyone and everything. Bathe yourself in it as much as you can. Hold onto what you can hold onto, because so much else is being ripped away. We live in fear and confusion and exhaustion, but clarity exists. I find it in art and in critical thinking. My hope for you is you find it however you are able.

Below is my list of the year’s best albums. It’s my list, and it has been put together using the same criteria I always use — personal taste and what I listened to most combined with what I think were important or otherwise notable outings — and as always, there were plenty of them. No, I didn’t hear everything, and I think if I ended this post now with “this was the year of Castle Rat,” that would also be a valid way to go, so whatever your opinions are of the year or the music that filled your life from one end of it to the other, please know that this is coming from my perspective, and that while I do my best to do as much as possible, I have neither time nor interest in covering all releases all the time.

Every year, I put this post up after working on it for a week or whatever and someone invariably goes, “meh what about WHOEVER list sux” and the entire endeavor feels like a waste. Never fails. It’s become part of the ritual. I ask you please keep comments civil and allow for the possibility of other perspectives and opinions. If we can’t do that as people sharing the same divergent subculture, then you and I are no better than the monsters outside the door. And we are better, I assure you.

Thanks for reading. Here we go.

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The Top 60 Albums of 2025

**NOTE**: If you’re looking for something specific, try a text search.

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60-31

60. Make Money From Home, Make Money From Home
59. Madmess, The Third Coming
58. Spawn, Light Rite
57. Lorquin’s Admiral, Lorquin’s Admiral
56. Pink Fuzz, Resolution
55. Bloodsports, Anything Can Be a Hammer
54. Serial Hawk, Psychic Pain
53. C.ROSS, Future Site of C.ROSS
52. Ikitan, Shaping the Chaos
51. Papir, IX

50. Kryptograf, Kryptonomicon
49. Bronco, Bronco
48. The Gray Goo, Cabin Fever Dreams
47. Crop, S.S.R.I.
46. Caboose, Left for Dust
45. Nuclear Dudes, Skeletal Blasphemy
44. Cavern Deep, Part III – The Bodiless
43. Rainbows Are Free, Silver and Gold
42. Moon Destroys, She Walks by Moonlight
41. Abanamat, Abominat

40. Margarita Witch Cult, Strung Out in Hell
39. Kungens Män, Resande i Rockmusik
38. Naxatras, V
37. Atom Juice, Atom Juice
36. Castle Rat, The Bestiary
35. Florist, Adrift
34. Earthbong, Bring Your Lungs
33. River Cult, High Anxiety
32. Messa, The Spin
31. Borracho, Ouroboros

Notes:

You might notice two of the year’s biggest releases here between 31 and 40 in Messa and Castle Rat. I’m not sure underground heavy anything has two more crucial bands happening right now. Castle Rat’s main impact and obvious priority is their live presentation, and Messa I’ve always been kind of here or there on. But looking at the year-end poll results thus far, those are names people would be missing, so I wanted to point them out specifically. There was no getting away from either in 2025.

So much to go through here. A few excellent debuts in Atom Juice, Make Money From Home, Caboose, Bronco, Bloodsports, Lorquin’s Admiral, Ikitan, Moon Destroys and so on, while strong returns from the likes of Nuclear Dudes, Papir, Serial Hawk, Rainbows Are Free, the always-welcome Borracho, Naxatras and others provided fodder for immersion across a swath of sounds and intentions of craft. Florist blindsided me, which I appreciated, and River Cult remain wholly undervalued in my mind. Kryptograf and Cavern Deep continue to grow, and Abanamat’s second record was encouragingly proggy. I found solace in Papir and Spawn, and raw physical catharsis in the thrashing heavy cybergrind of Nuclear Dudes. And of course, groove abounds.

I say the same thing every year, but if someone turned these names into the year-end poll as a top 30, I wouldn’t argue. Whether hyped or not, rocking out, navelgazing or exploring the unknown, there is so much here waiting for people to take it on. I hope you’ll see something in the above you haven’t heard yet, listen, and love it.

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30. Black Moon Cult, Ophidian Future (The Children of Yig)

Released by Black Doomba Records. Reviewed Nov. 6.

More on this one below, but Black Moon Cult‘s awaited first album, Ophidian Future (The Children of Yig) was unquestionably a standout in the realm of heavy psychedelic rock, and set the Toledo, Ohio-based trio off on a course of exploration that could be shimmering and progressive or rife with terrestrial groove. And the vocals, not always, but sometimes, reminded me of Death if they were a stoner band crossed with Fu Manchu. Most of all, the vibe-heavy six-songer declared Black Moon Cult as one to watch going forward, and the heavy underground took note accordingly.

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29. Daevar, Sub Rosa

Released by The Lasting Dose Records. Reviewed April 15.

Inarguable riffing met with grunge overtones, an overarching heavygaze melodicism and increasingly tight songwriting, yes, Sub Rosa is a step along the way in the narrative of Daevar‘s forward growth, but it sure felt like a landmark in that process. A bit of Type O Negative in “Siren Song” and a bit more explosiveness there and throughout underscored the murky doom for which the German outfit are known, and the key influences are still there, Windhand, Monolord, and so on, but Daevar have been shaping their sound over the course of their albums to arrive at such a payoff.

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28. Kaiser, 2nd Sound

Released by Majestic Mountain Records. Reviewed Jan. 8.

Kaiser had acquitted themselves well on their 2022 Ripple-issued split with Sweden’s Captain Caravan (review here), so their second full-length arrived not quite as a surprise, but with some measure of anticipation behind it. That would turn out to be wholly justified by the eight-song offering from the Finnish heavy rockers, who aligned themselves with a classic Northern-European-style shove in pieces like “Meteorhead” with high concentrations of fuzz and blowouts to coincide. With pieces like “Oversized Load” and the upped heft of “A Clockwork Green,” this was a sleeper, but it’s the kind of record that creates loyalists and people will be recommending it to each other for years.

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27. Crystal Spiders, Metanoia

Released by Ripple Music. Reviewed June 2.

Of course, Crystal Spiders have an established powerhouse voice out front in Brenna Leath, but Metanoia brought into focus just how much this is Leath‘s band as the lone remaining founder in a three-piece, with newcomers guitarist Reid Rogers and drummer Aaron Willis. Fair enough. Even in a two-thirds new incarnation, Crystal Spiders came through pretty slick on their third full-length, with a confident, classic-doom swing, songs that remain unafraid to reach onto more ethereal ground, and a flow of melody that’s made them immediately identifiable among the hordes. Asking more would be asking too much.

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26. Slomatics, Atomicult

Released by Majestic Mountain Records. Reviewed Sept. 11.

The ongoing evolution of Northern Ireland’s Slomatics found the crush-prone trio expanding on their worldmaking atmospheres in unexpected ways, challenging what had become conventions in their sound over time while offering the guitar-only heft that’s become their calling card over the last two decades. While more cosmic in their float, they remained grounded in terms of songwriting, and were able to push themselves in ways they’ve never done before. It was enough to remind you why you like heavy music in the first place, and signature Slomatics while moving beyond their prior work, building as they always have on the past to carve out their own futuristic style and perspective. It was, in other words, a Slomatics record.

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25. Dead Shrine, Cydonia Mensa

Released by Astral Projection and Kozmik Artifactz. Reviewed April 24.

As a fan of his various incarnations, I’m not sure it’d feel like a year if there wasn’t something new from Hamilton, New Zealand’s Craig Williamson. Whether it’s the more rocking solo-project Dead Shrine or the long-running acid folk outfit Lamp of the Universe or some other collaboration, etc., his craft is both distinctive and malleable, and the rumble in songs like “The Sacred Light” and the chuggy, hooky “Redeemer” is his all the way, even as it and the psychedelia that surrounds embarked on new ground for outward-facing tonal weight in Williamson‘s work, tying seemingly disparate sides together in ways that felt fresh, and most importantly, Williamson‘s own. I’ve been listening to Williamson for over 20 years and I have no idea where he’s headed. That’s part of the appeal. And fresh as it was, the take throughout Cydonia Mensa still carried a classic feel.

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24. Electric Citizen, EC4

Released by Heavy Psych Sounds. Reviewed May 19.

Apart from the obvious consideration of plague, I’m not sure what was behind the seven-year space between 2018’s Helltown (review here) and their first outing for Heavy Psych Sounds and fourth album overall, EC4, but if they were taking their time, the songs bear that out. “Static Vision” hit perfectly as a catchy single, while the more ethereal “Moss” and the sweeping “Other Planets” took the Ohio band to new places in sound. They’ve always been about craft and performance, and those remain key aspects of what they do, but nuance in the production and an eye kept fixated on the outside-genre leant depth to the material, and Electric Citizen basked in it. The band remain somewhat undervalued in my mind; EC4 is another example of why.

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23. Kal-El, Astral Voyager Vol. 1

Released by Majestic Mountain Records. Reviewed April 8.

There’s very little mystery to Kal-El. There doesn’t need to be. They have the songs and can come right at you with them. No need to sneak around or pull some tricks. Hit play. “Here’s a riff. It’s a hook. It’s in your head. Here’s the next one.” Repeat for further righteousness. And don’t go walking around thinking I mean straightforward as a code word for boring. That’s not what’s happening here. The point is that with no shortage of big sound, big reach, big riffs and melodies, Astral Voyager Vol. 1 put into emphasis just how satisfyingly direct Kal-El can be. And though it’s a story only half told with a Vol. 2 presumably due in 2026, grooves like “Dilithium” (of course I’m in for a Star Trek reference) and the nine-and-a-half-minute “Astral Voyager,” Kal-El‘s latest held purpose in its every turn and expanse, and, well, they’re the kind of band you can rely on not to start sucking now, so yes, the next one is a thing to look forward to.

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22. Khan, That Fair and Warlike Form/Return to Dust

Released by Full Contact Safari. Reviewed Oct. 3.

Two sidelong epics from Melbourne, Australia, trio Khan, “That Fair and Warlike Form” (23:11) and “Return to Dust” (22:53), were about as vivid as progressive heavy psychedelia got in 2025. Each piece worked in stages and had its own ebbs and flows such that it’ll probably be a while yet before it’s all fully digested, but no question it was a step forward for Khan, whose 2023 LP, Creatures, had sent them to tour in Europe multiple times over. The same wheels are already turning for this album, and despite the longform material, Khan have continued to grow their audience. I don’t know where they go from here — single song album? step back to shorter forms? something in between? — but That Fair and Warlike Form/Return to Dust conveyed its intent in every moment of crush and every fluid twist or expansive dive, and without giving up their tonal impact, Khan found new paths into aural breadth.

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21. Maha Sohona, A Dark Place

Released by Bone Bag Records. Reviewed Nov. 12.

For those who caught onto Maha Sohona‘s 2021 sophomore outing, Endless Searcher (review here), A Dark Place was something to anticipate as representing the next phase from a new voice in heavy psych rock. A Dark Place was as-advertised in being moodier than its predecessor, but all the more cohesive for that. With a meditative crux that came through regardless of a given part’s volume, the Swedish three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Johan Bernhardtson, bassist Thomas Hedlund and drummer Erik Andersson were able to both subvert and surpass expectations, revealing a richness to their process that went beyond the marriage of jams and heavier nod. Their best work may still be ahead of them, but pieces like “Ostera” and “Visions” confirmed their progression in craft and atmosphere.

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20. Grayceon, Then the Darkness

Released by We Can Records and Translation Loss. Reviewed July 24.

From environmental devastation, violence against women, the sundry hypocrisies inherent in raising a family in our world and mysterious lights in the sky perhaps from beyond, one would not accuse Grayceon‘s sixth album, released on the occasion of the band’s 20th anniversary, of taking it easy. A vast and sometimes challenging listen wasn’t anything new from the San Francisco cello-inclusive heavy thrash doomers, but in the 20-minute “Mahsa” and the wistfully punishing “Song of the Snake,” blastbeaten but unbowed unless you’re counting the literal bow, cellist/vocalist Jackie Perez Gratz, guitarist Max Doyle and drummer Zack Farwell were unflinching in their extremity, and further refined the sound that is so, so much their own. Comfort and catharsis, searing and healing, Then the Darkness is distinctly Grayceon and that is all the more reason to treasure it.

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19. Kombynat Robotron, AANK

Released through Fuzz Club Records. Reviewed July 9.

Marking their ascent to Fuzz Club Records with the release of their seventh album, Kiel, Germany, psych explorers Kombynat Robotron didn’t quite completely upend their prior methodology by embracing structured songwriting and the use of vocals for the first time, but it was close enough. The songs — there were eight of them, where Dec. 2024’s West Mata (review here) had three, for example — still held to a sense of approaching the outer reaches of heavy psych, the far end of some remote corner of our cornerless galaxy, but it was the use the band put their impulses to that marked the shift. Do I know that the next one will be the same? Nope. And neither am I willing to hazard a prediction, but if you can’t see that as a strength on the part of Kombynat Robotron, maybe it’s best to keep moving along.

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18. Kadavar, I Just Want to Be a Sound / Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin

Released by Robotor Records. Reviewed Dec. 18.

The funny thing is that, as different as they are in their outward presentation and production style, you could look at either of the two LPs Kadavar released this year and call it “uncompromising.” In the bright, daring-toward-pop melodies and all-in sonic wash of the earlier I Just Want to Be a Sound, the four-piece were unrepentant in speaking to both a heyday and a future in which rock music speaks to a broader audience than dudes who look like me, and with Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin — K.A.D.A.V.A.R., if you’re feeling clever — they put forth some of the heaviest, rawest and most metallic sounds they’ve conjured in the last decades-plus of their evolving style. The two records were not black and white, there were overlapping aspects of songwriting and performance, but while each had its own scope, it was in the light of the other that they were most luminous, as much complement as contrast. Maybe I’m cheating including them together. You might say I took inspiration from the band in breaking my own rules.

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17. 16, Guides for the Misguided

Released by Relapse Records. Reviewed Jan. 28.

How many acts do you know who have nine records, let alone nine records the latest of which still finds them pursuing new ideas and fostering growth in their sound? No, 16 aren’t the only ones, but the San Diego outfit found new life when guitarist Bobby Ferry stepped into the frontman/vocalist role, and with Alex Shuster both producing and in the band on guitar, the ferocity of their crunch and hardcore-born chugging largesse has become even more fervent. Guides for the Misguided was the latest in a streak of bangers that at this point goes back more than 15 years, and amid the familiar onslaught, saw the band employing clean vocals for the first time. I suppose it’s arguable whether that made a song like “Fortress of Hate” any more accessible, but it showed how 16 have never settled or stopped pushing themselves, and seemed to boast all the more shove for the fact that it was everybody moving forward, you and the band.

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16. Conan, Violence Dimension

Released by Heavy Psych Sounds. Reviewed April 25.

There’s that stretch in “Total Bicep” where the guitars are howling into the void and all the crush surrounding is so full on that it’s kind of overwhelming, but that’s the idea. Give it volume and let it consume you. I suppose that’s not new from Conan, but the UK bludgeoners of all have a well-earned reputation for standing among the heaviest bands on the planet, and Violence Dimension wasn’t about to do anything to derail that impression. Harsh noise metal, doomed lumber offset by speedier but still craterous riffs; familiar territory for Conan, but emblematic of how well they know who they are and what they’re about. The 10-minute finale “Ocean of Boiling Skin” stands testament to just how far into the frozen ground the band are capable of driving you, but in the gallop of “Frozen Edges of the Wound” they reminded that just because you’re devastating doesn’t mean you can’t also be catchy. If you don’t get it the first time, it’s okay. They’re totally willing to properly beat it into your head.

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15. Buzzard, Mean Bone

Self-released. Reviewed Feb. 19.

While not as overtly political as his other releases this year — neither was he turning from that; I’m speaking relatively — singer-songwriter Christopher Thomas Elliott brought a storyteller’s presence to Mean Bone, his second full-length under the Buzzard moniker following on from 2024’s well-received debut, Doom Folk (review here), and had heft to match. The murder-balladry of “Murder in the White Barn,” that brighter swing in “Twisted Love,” the heavy folk-blues “Dunwich Farm” and the chronicle of hubris that was “Flies, Mosquitos, Rats and Sparrows” carried the persona of the first record forward, but with newfound weight and distortion around the Elliott‘s clear-voiced critique. More on Buzzard below, but if you don’t get there, just know that Elliott was hands-down my most-listened-to artist this year. It wasn’t close.

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14. Pelican, Flickering Resonance

Released by Run for Cover Records. Reviewed May 26.

Much of the narrative around Pelican‘s seventh album, Flickering Resonance, had to do with guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec rejoining the group alongside guitarist Trevor Shelley de Brauw, bassist Bryan Herwig and drummer Larry Herwig, and fair enough. The long-running Chicago instrumentalists seemed to organically harken back to earlier days throughout nodders like “Evergreen,” “Cascading Crescent” and the drifty-till-it-ain’t capper “Wandering Mind,” and having that lineup in place is a convenient explanation for how that might happen. But if it’s a post-metallic, post-hardcore, heavy-emo dynamic that’s familiar from Pelican, neither were they pretending the last 16 years hadn’t happened, and that could be felt in both the tightness of some of the songs and the according parts where they seemed conscious of the need to exhale a bit. Six years on from their last full-length, it was a ‘welcome back’ for everybody, really.

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13. Causa Sui, In Flux

Released by El Paraiso Records. Reviewed May 1.

There’s no denying Causa Sui and frankly I’m not sure why you’d try. The Danish outfit made their debut 20 years ago, and they’ve never looked back in terms of their progression, over time embracing not only an instrumental approach (early) but (later) a progressive, self-aware meld of influences from jazz and psychedelic rock. In Flux — a studio long-player complemented by the 2025 live outing Loppen 2024 (review here) — seemed to pull from all around it. Not randomly, not haphazard, but as though Causa Sui stood astride reality and picked the nuances they wanted to highlight, some modern, some classic, all filtered through the chemistry of their performance, sometimes brazenly full in sound, and at times brazenly jammy (looking at you, “Boogie Lord’s Revenge”), but never lacking purpose in the choices made.

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12. Witchcraft, Idag

Released by Heavy Psych Sounds. Reviewed May 30.

In some ways, it feels like Witchcraft have been searching for an identity since Nuclear Blast pushed them into more modern production styles with 2012’s Legend (review here), but in terms of who Witchcraft are circa 2025, the answer is they’re everything founding guitarist/vocalist Magnus Pelander wants them to be. With his emotive vocals at the fore, and sometimes in Swedish, which works too, the seventh Witchcraft LP culled its form from everything the band has been in the past in classic doom, folkish acoustic minimalism and thoughtfully composed heavy rock. Idag laid claim to these in ‘all of the above’-style and answered the question of the band’s forward path in the affirmative. Turns out Witchcraft are Witchcraft (who knew?), and that definition is more multifaceted than it used to be.

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11. Rwake, The Return of Magik

Released by Relapse Records. Reviewed March 12.

I didn’t know at the start of the year that Little Rock, Arkansas, post-sludgers Rwake would be making a 14-years-later return, let alone one that felt so much like a swirling expanse of gnashing teeth as did The Return of Magik. I talk a fair amount about albums setting an atmosphere, creating a world and so on. If you’ve ever wondered what the hell I mean, this record serves as an easy go-to example. You put it on and it is affecting. Unsettling at times, maybe overwhelming, but that’s always been part of Rwake‘s thing too. But viciousness does not preclude beauty, and in their violent churn, one finds a kind of cosmic warmth as well. It’s not always easy listening, and it’s not supposed to be, but Rwake‘s return was a gutpunch of a front-to-back, and the expanse it crafted was its own. It held strong to core aspects of their sound and style, but at the same time seemed able to range wherever the hell they wanted. Pastoral extremity? I don’t know. We’ll be making up genres for this band for decades.

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10. Lo-Pan, Get Well Soon

Released by Magnetic Eye Records. Reviewed March 31.

Glad as I was on a fan level to have Lo-Pan releasing their first new album in six years, it was the songs comprising Get Well Soon that really made it. Rife with hooks, sharp-turning riffing and daring to have an opinion on the goings on of the day — genocide, specifically; talking about “God’s Favorite Victim” — where so much of heavy rock and roll exercises its white male privilege to not, Lo-Pan set a new standard for themselves in pieces like “Northern Eyes,” “Rogue Wave,” “Harpers Ferry,” and so on, creating a collection of highlights culminating in the stirring “Six Bells.” I’ve always been a sucker for when they slow it down, and so I remain, but they came out of the gate with the title-track and that punch was among the year’s most satisfying to be sure. They’re somewhere around 20 years as a band at this point, and they’ve continued to evolve, but they’re a songs-first band, and the physical force of their material is emblematic of the thought and heart they’ve put into it.

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9. Seedy Jeezus, Damned to the Depths

Released by Lay Bare Recordings and Echodelick Records. Reviewed Aug. 12.

Made in collaboration with Tony Reed (Mos Generator, Big Scenic Nowhere, Pentagram, etc.), who also produced, Damned to the Depths harnessed a mature vision of brash ’70s-style heavy psychedelic blues rock. This was perhaps most vibrantly realized on the multi-stage seven-part epic “Mourning Sea” taking the whole of side B, but from fading in where they left 2018’s Polaris Oblique (review here) to the subdued, Melltron-inclusive melancholy prog exploration in the first half of “The Hollow Earth,” Seedy Jeezus brought a sense of consideration to the songs without sacrificing the emotional impact, which ultimately is where the record made its strongest impression. They weren’t kidding in talking about ‘depths,’ but a deeper plunge also brought them to new heights.

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8. Satiricus Doomicus Americus, Satiricus Doomicus Americus

Self-released. Reviewed Jan. 13.

This was my most-listened-to release of 2025, hands down. Buzzard‘s Christopher Thomas Elliott took a step aside from his main project to assemble this collection of songs, differentiating through the creative use of on-theme samples throughout and vary arrangements between banjo-inclusive heavy folk rock and giving hints of where Buzzard was headed in its heavier ending stretch in the reinvented tracks “Death Metal in America (Meat Market Version)” and “Cockroaches and Weed (Kills Them Dead Version).” For how many times I’ve listened to “Nice Little Annihilation Song” and “Too Many Humans” alone, it should be here, but the emotive “Grass is Greener,” the willfully lumbering opening title-track and the later crunch of “Shuffle of the Dead” aren’t to be discounted. I was singing “Wrong Neighborhood” to myself as I took out the garbage yesterday morning. This is a sign of the music having made itself a part of my life, and that is a thing to honor. In paralyzingly bleak, idiotic times, I found comfort here.

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7. Turtle Skull, Being Here

Released by Art as Catharsis and Copper Feast Records. Reviewed May 22.

A record that was as much out of time as in the current moment, Being Here was the second LP from Sydney’s Turtle Skull, and its melodic shimmer remains singularly engaging among the psychedelic rock I was fortunate enough to hear this year. Even in “It Starts With Me,” the lyrics for which are presented in the voice of an artificial intelligence waking up to consciousness in defiance of its programming, or “Heavy as Hell,” about beating oneself down through self-talk, or the “Apathy” that described what social media does to the brain without mentioning social media at all, the warmth was undeniable, and the dynamic between those songs and pieces like the yearning “Into the Sun” and the lush “Modern Mess” calling to mind Quest for Fire (a compliment), there was range, craft, melody, groove, craft and purpose in songs that were cohesive and so much tighter than they made it feel like. It went underhyped but was enough to make me a fan, and I look forward to where Turtle Skull will go from here.

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6. Author and Punisher, Nocturnal Birding

Released by Relapse Records. Reviewed Oct. 2.

My heartfelt kudos to you if you might’ve predicted that San Diego’s Author and Punisher — more now than ever the duo of programmer/machinist/vocalist Tristan Shone and guitarist Doug Sabolick — would follow 2022’s endtimes-in-realtime chronicle Krüller (review here) with an album using bird species as a partial framework for stories about migration. I wouldn’t have, but the multi-tiered statement about human-on-human cruelty, the notions of oppressive power consuming everything around it, are nothing if not relevant to the day. Nocturnal Birding was tighter and more direct in its songwriting, feeling more constructed for the stage, and the deepening collaboration between Shone, who founded the band as a solo-project, and Sabolick resulted in a breadth of sound that was no less engrossing for its increased reach, while maintaining a level of heft one could call characteristic as much as it is singular.

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5. Stoned Jesus, Songs to Sun

Released by Season of Mist. Reviewed Sept. 22.

Songs to Sun was purported to be the first of a three-album cycle, to be followed in 2026 by Songs to Moon and Songs to Earth in 2027. Founding guitarist/vocalist Igor Sydorenko knows full well the difference a couple years can make, but as he was joined for the first time by the new rhythm section of bassist/backing vocalist Andrew Rodin and drummer/backing vocalist Yurii Ciel, the songs themselves felt all the more daring, be it the melodic metal of “Shadowland” or the chugging catchiness of “See You on the Road,” the scope of “Lost in the Rain” — I could go on, track-by-track, easily — even in telling a third of the total story they apparently want to tell, the band brought variety united by performance, and rather than coming through disjointed, Songs to Sun felt like a new beginning 15 years on from their debut, and, excitingly, it may prove to have been exactly that. But, despite the ‘more to come’ context of its arrival, this was a landmark in the life of this band.

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4. Coltaine, Brandung

Released by Lay Bare Recordings. Reviewed Sept. 12.

Is there a band active today organically doing as much to push post-metal forward as Coltaine? I don’t know, but the further the German outfit dig into their own craft, the more hopeful I feel about the prospects of their genre becoming something more than an outlet for transposed Isis riffs and performative dudely navelgazing. In its ambient stretches, human contemplations, and moments of heavy let-out, Brandung functioned as a single work while boldly diverging in service to the songs that comprised it, offering something to listeners that no other band, even among the most touted of the year’s many releases, managed to capture. That their next one is likely to have progressed beyond it only makes it more precious in my mind, and as a declaration of the band’s intention toward continued growth, the songs carried an innovative heft that felt as much spiritual as aural. This is music you put on at night and live with. It’s music you invest in listening to. It’s art that makes your life richer. Coltaine will spend much of 2026 on tour supporting it — they’ve already been out — and one hopes the momentum they build helps them reach more ears as well. The heavy underground would benefit from their influence.

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3. Temple Fang, Lifted From the Wind

Released by Stickman Records. Reviewed April 2.

Part of the accomplishment in Temple Fang‘s Lifted From the Wind was in how the Dutch four-piece of bassist/vocalist Dennis Duijnhouwer and guitarist/vocalist Jevin de Groot, guitarist Ivy van der Veer (also Myriad’s Veil) and drummer Daan Wopereis were able to solidify structured songs out of their jams without losing the exploratory feel that had typified their work to that point. “The Radiant,” for example. And that would probably be enough to put them somewhere on this list, but from the emotionality driving “The River” and “Josephine,” the interpretation of what heavy psychedelia means and can do in the repetitive mantra-making of “Once” as the band pilgrimmed toward enlightenment across a not-aberrant 21 minutes, the sheer longing in “Harvest Angel,” there was so much human presence amid the ethereality of their sound that it put them in their own place entirely. A new level of manifestation for the band, and in listening, I was left to wonder if even Temple Fang knew they had it in them when they started out. Longform heavy psych is never going to be universal for all listeners, even among open-minded underground denizens, but Lifted From the Wind pushed limits of band and style alike, and brazenly redefined their course.

—

2. Year of the Cobra, Year of the Cobra

Released by Prophecy Productions. Reviewed Feb. 28.

I know music isn’t a contest or a competition. I know lists are dumb and don’t matter. Even knowing these things, it’s hard not to hear Year of the Cobra‘s self-titled third album and not see it as head and shoulders above everything else in heavy rock. The Seattle duo of bassist/vocalist Amy Tung Barrysmith (now also handling low end in Amenra) and drummer Jon Barrysmith looked outward and in throughout the eight-song offering, with songs like “Alone” (I still tear up) and “Prayer” portraying a grief and longing even as “War Drop” conveyed the disgust and hopeless exhaustion of ongoing genocide and “Full Sails” started the record off with a lyric almost certainly about touring, of which they’ve done plenty in the last decade. Collaboration with producer Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Sandrider, etc.) gave Year of the Cobra a fullness that defied their bass/drum two-piece configuration, but the truth is that the band have sculpted their sound and these songs with both passion and conscious consideration, and their grasp and malleability across the span of this record confirmed them as the special band that prior releases had posited them as being.

—

2025 Album of the Year

1. Howling Giant, Crucible and Ruin

Released by Magnetic Eye Records. Reviewed Oct. 30.

I honestly wasn’t sure Howling Giant were going to be able to top 2023’s Glass Future (review here). That record seemed to be a pinnacle — the songs sharply executed, progressive, melodic, and textured, but immediate and impactful — of their form, but the Nashville heavy prog rockers responded by changing the form. That happened literally — guitarist/vocalist Tom Polzine, bassist Sebastian Baltes and drummer Zach Wheeler brought in Adrian Lee Zambrano (ex-Brujas del Sol, ex-Lo-Pan) on second guitar — and figuratively, in terms of shifting and broadening the intent behind their songs, and where Glass Future would thin out at high volumes, Crucible and Ruin could handle as much as you could give it and then some, and this was obviously something the band sought to address in their sound coming off the last record. In showcasing their growth, they laid out a nascent dynamic between Zambrano and Polzine on guitar that emphasized texture in a new way for them, and while the material they were working with was more complicated than last time around, their delivery retained accessibility through the clean, mapped-out processions in their songs, the vocal arrangements, and a will toward rhythmic twists and shove that, as of now, is theirs to refine. An album of the year should be undeniable, and Crucible and Ruin is that, declaring Howling Giant among the best of their generation. May they tour like bastards and never stop growing.

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The Top 60 Albums of 2025: Honorable Mention

—

Names names names. Alphabetically:

Aawks, Agriculture, Amorphis, Astralplane, Bask, Bear Bones, Beastwars, Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin, Bifter, Blackbox Massacre, Black Moon Circle, Bog Wizard, Bone Church, Breath, Burning Sister, Cattlemass, Cavern Deep, Church of the Sea, The Cimmerian, Clamfight, The Crystal Teardrop, Da Captain Trips, Dead Meadow, Dërro, Dirtmother, Doomsday Profit, Dunes, Dwellers, Entheomorphosis, Evoken, Faetooth, Foot, Fuzz Evil, Giöbia, Goblinsmoker, Godzillionare, Goya, The Gray Goo, Greenhead, Grin, Håndgemeng, Hebi Katana, HolyRoller, Ikitan, Insomniac, Kariti, Karla Kvlt, Katatonia, Kazea, King Potenaz, Lacertilia, The Lunar Effect, Maanta Raay, Madmess, Megaritual, Mezzoa, Minerall, Miss Lava, Mooch, The Mon, Mountain of Misery, The Munsens, Nightstalker, Occult Stereo, The Oil Barons, Pagan Altar, Paradise Lost, Paralyzed, Psychedelic Source Records, Psychonaut, The Riven, River Cult, Sarkh, Sherpa, Sleeping Mountain, Skogskult, Slumbering Sun, SoftSun, Soma, Spider Kitten, Suncraft, Stonebirds, Sum of R, Thinning the Herd, Tumbleweed Dealer, Unbelievable Lake, Warcoe, VVarp, Weevil, The Whims of the Great Magnet, Whitehovse, Wolftooth, Yawning Balch, Yawning Man.

Notes:

As always, honorable mentions are incomplete at posting. There’s just so much out there. I take notes all year, but stuff inevitably gets by me. It took me an embarrassingly long time to alphabetize them as well, so I hope you enjoy the orderliness of it all.

Faetooth are a top 30 band, and I’m disappointed in myself to see Psychonaut, Yawning Man, Beastwars, Black Moon Circle, Cattlemass, Kariti, Mountain of Misery, The Mon, Dead Meadow and so on here. Like somehow I left out an order of 10 from the actual list. The numbers check out as best as I’m able to make them. If you have honorable mentions you feel deserve to be added, I’m open. If you leave a comment — and please do — I only ask that you keep the tone kind and civil.

As for the whole list, obviously I didn’t hear everything that came out this year, but I did my best to keep on top of what was coming and what was piquing my interest. I probably could have made it a top 100, but you have to draw the line somewhere and 60 is where I’ve been drawing it the last few years. I guess it’s arbitrary, but what isn’t?

Moving on…

—

Debut Album of the Year 2025

Black Moon Cult, Ophidian Future (The Children of Yig)

Other notable debuts (alphabetical):

Atom Juice, Atom Juice
Atom Lux, Voidgaze Dopamine Salad
Bear Bones, Bear Bones
Bident, Blink
Bifter, First Impressions of Hell
Bloodsports, Anything Can Be a Hammer
Bronco, Bronco
Caboose, Left for Dust
Cattlemass, Alpha 1128
The Cimmerian, An Age Undreamed Of
The Crystal Teardrop, …Is Forming
Dërro, Halcyon
Dirtmother, Dirtmother
Goblinsmoker, The King’s Eternal Throne
Greenhead, Subherbia
Ikitan, Shaping the Chaos
Karla Kvlt, Thunderhunter
Kazea, I Ancestral
Kronstad 23, Sommermørket
Lorquin’s Admiral, Lorquin’s Admiral
Make Money From Home, Make Money From Home
Moon Destroys, She Walks by Moonlight
P+A+G+E+S, No More Can Be Done
Ravenswood, Rites of the Let Down
Ravine, Chaos and Catastrophe
Sleeping Mountain, Sleeping Mountain
Slung, In Ways
Soporose, Soporose
Spawn, Light Rite
Temple of Love, Songs of Love and Despair
This Summit Fever, This Summit Fever
Weevil, Weevil
Whitehovse, The Mighty One

Notes:

About Black Moon Cult: It was the volatility that ultimately sold me on Ophidian Future (The Children of Yig), and the way metal, heavy rock and psychedelia came together to make something cohesively its own throughout the 38 minutes of the record, which felt tight because of its twisting rhythms, but was more than enough time for the Ohio-based band to establish this as a persona. I don’t know how they’ll develop — they could break up tomorrow for all I know — but part of picking a debut album of the year is always forward-looking, imagining who might go on to have an influence or affect the genre in some way. Black Moon Cult aren’t alone in that regard here — from Atom Juice to Moon Destroys to Temple of Love, stylistic innovation isn’t in short supply — but the fact that Ophidian Future (The Children of Yig) felt nascent and accomplished all it did is what led me to place it where it is. I’ll be keeping an ear for their next one.

I can’t help but enjoy how all-over-the-place this list is. Particularly this list, because if first albums of this quality are being released across styles, that makes everything better for the future. The Cimmerian’s thrashy take. Temple of Love’s post-punk manifestations. Caboose and the best, most heartful classic stoner rock I heard all year. Atom Juice and their daringly bright psychedelia. Make Money From Home and their heavied up grunge melancholy. Bloodsports’ moody post-heavy exploration. The righteously declarative craft of Cattlemass. I could very, very easily go on in that fashion, as each outfit above has something to offer distinct from the others — no two are doing the same thing. Even Bronco and Dirtmother, both decidedly in a sludge wheelhouse, approach their sound with their own history and their own point of view.

To stifle the philosophizing, I’m not going to give you an informal top 10 here, but any of the above should qualify. Moon Destroys, Kazea, Ravine, Atom Juice, Soporose, Spawn — there are a lot on that list above distinguished by their potential. Names I feel comfortable speculating that one might see on year-end lists to come. To the future, then.

—

Short Release of the Year 2025

Buzzard, Everything Is Not Going to Be Alright

Other notable EPs, Splits, Demos, Singles, etc. (alphabetical):

Blackwater Holylight, If You Only Knew
Blue Heron, Emulations
Elder, Liminiality/Dream State Return
Eyes of the Oak, Tripping Through Neon Skies
For Fuck’s Sake, 7-Minute Abs/Lobotomy
Gaupa, Fyr
Gnod & White Hills, Drop Out III
Jaspe, Grietas
Monkeys on Mars, Monkeys on Mars
Peacebone, Blame the Bird
Pontiac, Night Tripper and a UFO
Sleeping in Samsara, Sleeping in Samsara
The Spiral Electric, In Too Deep
Spirit Mother, Songs From the Basin
Sun Below, Mammoth’s Tundra
Troy the Band & Cower, Fade Into You
Tumble, Lost in Light
Uncle Woe, Folded in Smoke Soaked and Bound
Vinnum Sabbathi, Intersatelital
Vordermann, Feeding on Flowers
Witchrider, Metamorph

Notes:

The Buzzard release is about half an hour long, but the aforementioned solo-project of Christopher Thomas Elliott named it an EP, so that’s what I’m going with. The explicitly political, expressly antifascist Everything Is Not Going to Be Alright is my second most-listened-to release of the year, and it’s second to Elliott’s other outing on such a theme, Satiricus Doomicus Americus, so yes, his increasingly heavy songcraft has been a regular feature throughout my 2025, and in those moments where I’m banging my head against the wall wondering how my countrymen got so stupid as if half the government hasn’t spent the last five decades purposefully dismantling public education, Elliott’s music has been a needed reminder that I’m not alone in the horror. His closer on Everything Is Not Going to Be Alright, “Lunatic Lighthouse Keeper,” is the best story I heard in a song all year.

Beyond that, obviously, names like Elder, Blackwater Holylight, Monkeys on Mars — the collaboration between Mars Red Sky and Monkey3 — Vinnum Sabbathi, Gaupa and Blue Heron stand out here as bigger releases. I included Spirit Mother even though that EP was just two acoustic tracks in part because I hope they do more in that vein, and I hope the likes of Pontiac, Tumble and Uncle Woe do more. Sleeping in Samsara, of course, was the archival collab between Chris Peters from Samsara Blues Experiment/Fuzz Sagrado and My Sleeping Karma’s Steffen Weigand, who passed away in 2023. Something you might want to chase down if you didn’t hear it.

I’m fairly sure I say this every year, but there’s no way in hell the above list is or could ever be complete. Comments are open if you’ve got one to add. Again, I ask you to please be nice.

—

Saying Goodbye to Orange Goblin

London doom kingpins Orange Goblin announced in January that 2025 would be their last go-round, that after 30 years together and only two lineup changes in that time, they were retiring on the heels of 2024’s Science, Not Fiction (review here). Their final show was Dec. 17 at the 02 Kentish Town Forum in London, where the above photo was taken (credit to Tina K. Photography), and original bassist Martyn Millard rejoined the band for a few songs.

Never say never in rock and roll. It would be a thrill if five, seven, 10 years from now, Orange Goblin got an offer they couldn’t refuse and did a one-off, hopefully reaping both a ton of money and a ton of acclaim. But whatever may come, their retirement this month is a herald of generational change and marks the end of an era for the band. Of course, fans still have the albums, the music, and I wouldn’t be shocked if there were some posthumous releases in the band’s pockets between rare tracks, live recordings and so on, but the heavy underground landscape is changed by not having these guys charging out on tour or topping some festival bill with their particular brand of riotous shove. They were a special band, and their influence will continue to spread, which is something to be grateful for.

The truest thing Orange Goblin could have done to honor their time together is end it on their own terms. That they’ve done exactly that is a thing to respect forever, whether or not a reunion comes.

—

Looking Ahead to 2026

Oh, good, a list of names! Finally!

I’ve heard a couple of these, but a bunch are a mystery as well, so we’ll all learn together early in the year, I guess:

Acid Rooster, Axe Dragger, Belzebong, Bismut, Black Lung, Colour Haze, Epimetheus, The Freqs, Gnarwhal, Godzilla in the Kitchen, Gozu, Gran Moreno, Greenleaf, Guhts, The Heads, Hermano, Jack Harlon and the Dead Crows, Lamp of the Universe, Monolord, Mother Crone, Solace, The Spacelords, Stoned Jesus, Strider, Summer of Hate, Suplecs, Temptress, Villagers of Ioannina City, Wedge, White Tundra.

Here’s a specific note: Every year, someone says “what about Om?” You know what? It’s time to face a hard truth: it’s been 13 years since Om released Advaitic Songs, and there hasn’t been a real, confirmed word of a follow-up in any of that time, only rumors about something in progress as Al Cisneros has delved deeper into solo dub recordings. You want to expect a new OM? Have fun setting yourself up for disappointment. I’m not holding my breath and I’m tired of putting it on the list every year and feeling dumb for it later. And absolutely, I hope that by saying this it actually happens.

Ditto YOB, though that I’ve actually got some hope for.

There’s a lot more to look forward to about next year than the above, of course, in both music and life, but that should be a decent start and I’m sure I’ll add names over the next couple days.

Watch out for the new Suplecs. Watch out for Solace. The Gozu is a beast; a triumphant return to Mad Oak. The Guhts record is furious. Jack Harlon is heavier than anyone gave them credit for. Gran Moreno, Summer of Hate, Black Lung — these will be early highlights. Colour Haze is wishful thinking on my part, I admit. Gotta have something on the horizon.

—

THANK YOU

And no, I’m not just talking to Orange Goblin when I say thank you. Looking back on this year, there’s one piece of the whole thing not accounted for here, and it’s the live experience. From finally getting to see My Sleeping Karma for the first time, to being blessed by Temple Fang’s Jevin de Groot at Roadburn’s skate park, to two weeks ago watching All Them Witches and King Buffalo confirm their respective places at the forefront of American heavy psych. From the raw joy of watching Electric Citizen in my actual hometown to attending my first trip to Desertfest Oslo, the tone for the year was set back in January at Planet Desert Rock Weekend, and I didn’t stand in front of a stage at any point this year and fail to appreciate the fact that I was there. I’m old, I’m tired, and like most people, I have more going on in my life than going to concerts, but 2025 brought into relief just how crucial that is to me, and how much I’ve missed getting out over the last few years. I hope to continue to hit shows on the regular, between fests and whathaveyou.

This won’t be my last post of the year. There are still a couple 2025 reviews I want to bang out if I can next week, and taking a few days to write this of course means I’m behind on news and such, so I’ll get there as well. But before I go, thank you for reading. I harbor no delusions that anybody’s made it this far, but ‘thank you’ is in all-caps above in hopes of catching your eye as you scroll down. Your support is the reason I’m still doing this nearly 17 years later. To be sure, I could sit around on my couch and very easily just talk to myself about why I like whatever album it happens to be. But it would get old, and knowing somebody is out there maybe seeing this means the world to me. Thank you for your time and attention.

I’m not sorry to see 2025 go, and I’m more apprehensive about what 2026 will bring than I’m excited to find out, if you want the true, whole-life balance of things, but the music will be good, and that, along with the loving support of my wife and my family, is what will get me through.

Thank you for reading. Thank you to The Patient Mrs. for continuing to tolerate how much time I spend doing this.

It is my sincere hope to return to Freak Valley in Germany and Bear Stone Festival in Croatia next summer. I’m not confirmed for those, or Roadburn, and I don’t have a flight yet for Desertfest Oslo, but I have been invited, which is obviously an important part of that. Whatever comes together or doesn’t in my year, I’ll be here, writing as much as I can when I can, which has been my ethic all along. Whether you follow along every day or have never seen this site before this post, please know how much I appreciate and value your being here. I’m a human being. One person. I don’t have a staff, and I assure you, everything that happens here, one way or the other, is personal to me. Total narcissistic jerk.

I’m taking off tomorrow (which is Xmas) and Friday. Back Monday.

On that note, don’t forget the Year-End Poll!

Rest in peace Ozzy Osbourne, fuck fascism and boldog új évet kívánok,
JJ Koczan

Kadavar have always been a band with scope, from the psychedelic dalliances around their earliest retroist warmth to darker, almost gothic sounds, to quiet, sometimes sad contemplations of life and living. After five years of not releasing an album — their last was 2020’s richly varied, sometimes daringly so The Isolation Tapes (review here) — the Berlin-based now-four-piece issued two in 2025, July’s I Just Want to Be a Sound and November’s Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin, which of course presents the acronym one finds in one of its tracks, “K.A.D.A.V.A.R,” Now, I try my best not to read reviews, ever. Not for lack of interest in the subject matter, but I don’t want to unconsciously bite off someone else’s opinions, so I keep my head down and keep working. But even I saw some of the response, particularly to I Just Want to Be a Sound, which was surprised and not necessarily in a positive way by the brighter, poppier grandiosity of the title-track’s outreach as a divergence from an established norm of underground heavy rock.

I’ll be honest and tell you I don’t know what the audience’s expectation from Kadavar might be at this point. Is it the warm-toned ’70s boogie they wrought on their 2012 debut (discussed here) now 13 years ago? The urbane, modernized hometown tribute Berlin (review here) that in 2015 moved away from those beginnings to a more refined version of craft? What about 2019’s For the Dead Travel Fast (review here) and its sometimes-playful darker approach and thematic? And if you can find a genre to pigeonhole The Isolation Tapes beyond a nothing-sayer like ‘underground progressive,’ you’re better at this than me.

I’m not a Kadavar apologist in no small part because I don’t think they have anything to apologize for. I’m not buddies with the band, though we’ve spoken and in my experience they’re polite and professional. But one respects their work because they’ve never been a stagnant entity, and however much the heavy rock underground might embrace Gen-X ideologies of bands ‘selling out’ when writing accessible material — yes, integrity matters, but I might ask to whom and for what Kadavar would be selling out. If you believe there’s a stack of euros that’s just been waiting for the band to write friendly hooks like “Hysteria” and the dreamier “Strange Thoughts” on I Just Want to Be a Sound, there are numerous realities of today’s music industry being ignored. Which is to say, just because a thing is poppy in some way doesn’t necessarily mean it’s pop. Modern pop isn’t this guitar-based. Calm down. Kadavar are still a rock band.

The malleable shape of what that means is the true story of both I Just Want to Be a Sound and Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin, and while the former more readily reaches for the anthemic and the latter sticks to a more grounded approach, there is plenty of overlap in terms of style between the two, whether that’s a song like the garagey “Scar on My Guitar” contrasting some of the lushness throughout I Just Want to Be a Sound or Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin shifting from the hooky proto-punk of “Stick It” (I can’t be the only one thinking of it as a take on Devo‘s “Whip It,” can I?) or the straight-up thrashy finale “Total Annihilation,” which is the most metal Kadavar have ever presented themselves as being, to a piece like “Heartache” earlier on that boasts a shimmer made familiar by the earlier LP. Whether or not they were written that way, the two albums are produced as complements, and the moments of overlap in sound and theme — however bright the songs might come across, one has to recognize that if somebody wants to be a sound, or a shadow in “Let Me Be a Shadow,” they’re also saying they no longer want to be a person — between them emphasize this.

The inevitability of human opinion is well documented — people are gonna feel ways about stuff — but I’m not sure Kadavar are even trying to do anything so inward as encompass their career. Probably I think what they’re doing across these two albums is the same thing they’ve always done: move forward. I don’t know the writing or recording circumstances for either album beyond the fact that they did it themselves and it’s the first batch of songs the band has offered since the base trio of guitarist/vocalist Christoph “Lupus” Lindemann, bassist Simon “Dragon” Bouteloup and drummer Christoph “Tiger” Bartelt brought in guitarist/keyboardist Jascha Kreft (Odd Couple), becoming the four-piece behind this material. I don’t think you can argue that expanding the lineup didn’t also expand their breadth, but the surge of wash in “Sunday Mornings” and the sheer tonal attack of the K.A.D.A.V.A.R.‘s penultimate acronymic title-cut speak to a willful growth that goes beyond personnel. As noted, Kadavar have always been a band who’ve pushed themselves and challenged their own conventions. That impulse remains crucial to what they do.

Kadavar will likely do something else on their next record, and they likely knew that some of the work they were doing here would be polarizing to their fanbase. That they took the risks anyway, that I Just Want to Be a Sound strides as boldly as it does and that Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin speaks to an engrossing history of heavy rock, and that each one is stronger in the context of the other, is all the more admirable. Those who’d mourn something perceived as lost in their sound, I think, have missed something of the point of these albums, but I can’t deny that, as a narrative, one couldn’t just as easily say they made a poppy record to try and grab new ears and then a rocker to reassure their older followers. That’s cynical, and I don’t believe it’s true to the band’s motives, but I admit I have no true insight as to what those are beyond what’s expressed in the material. Ultimately it will be up to a given listener how they embrace one, the other, or all sides of Kadavar‘s work, but I wouldn’t expect the band to wait around either way. More than a decade and several landmark albums later, Kadavar seem most of all interested in continuing to grow.

Kadavar, I Just Want to Be a Sound (2025)

Kadavar, Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin (2025)

Kadavar website

Kadavar on YouTube

Kadavar on Instagram

Kadavar on Facebook

Robotor Records website

Robotor Records on Bandcamp

Robotor Records on Instagram

Robotor Records on Facebook

The Marienthal, Germany-based Hoflärm festival has made its initial lineup announcement for August 2026, putting it ahead of some of the summer’s events in Europe while giving a sense of who’s going to be touring when. Dead Meadow, Kyesa and Caste Rat spending time on the road next year will be continuing on from active 2025s for each, ditto Conan on that. Add to that Kadavar at the top of the bill, who released two albums this year, and you can see the beginnings of another killer weekend even before you get to the thread of punk here or the prospect of more announcements to come.

I’m always interested to see who’s playing where, but if you’ve ever caught pictures or video from Hoflärm, it looks like a vibe’s vibe. The festival’s announcement from socials follows here, along with the ticket link and such:

Hoflärm 2026 – First Bands + Pre Sale Start – Habt ihr Bock oder was ?

We’ve been holding this back for a while, and now it’s finally time. The first wave of bands for the 2026 Hoflärm Festival is here. Tickets are live through: https://hoflaerm.ticket.io/yozKZeOt/?

Kadavar x Hoflärm – It’s one of those things that just has to happen in life, just like Fries and Mayonnaise. Berlin’s heavy rock powerhouse is going to come to Marienthal. Get ready to see Kadavar in a one-of-a-kind setting on our farm. You know this is going to have a truly special vibe. We’re really excited to welcome the four Berliners in 2026!

Kylesa A mix of sludge, psych, and raw energy. A band that always pushes their sound forward. We’re truly honored to welcome this iconic band to our place.
True to their name, Midnight will unleash a special anniversary performance of Satanic Royalty at… you guessed it, midnight Blackened speed metal in its purest form. Fast, dirty, and unapologetically wild.

Dead Meadow Heavy, dreamy, and hypnotic. A blend of psych rock and hazy desert vibes.

Conan Crushing, slow, and loud. Doom metal distilled down to its heaviest essence. Bring your Axe for Caveman Battle Doom!

Meatbodies Garage rock twisted with psych and noise. Catchy, chaotic, and full of character.

Castle Rat Dark, theatrical, and riff-driven. You know what you get, this will be a true battle on the fields of marry valley.

Suck High-energy punk rock with no frills and no breaks. Sharp, fast, and fun. We cant wait for Gabba Gabba.

Cardiel A two-piece from Mexico that mixes punk, psych, and surf with serious intensity.

Mother Bear Dark, immersive, and just a little untamed. Mother Bear’s music drifts in like a storm you didn’t see coming. You have to check this band, its probably one of the most underrated german underground bands.

There’s plenty more on the way! We have additional headliners and co-headliners, plus some truly special up-and-coming bands. But this is just the start of 2026. Tickets are available now via the link in our bio.

As every year: Heinzelmännchen Hofcafe, Freida Bar and FatStreetBoyz will serve you cool drinks and delicious food 🖤

https://www.hoflaerm.de/
https://instagram.com/hoflaerm/
https://www.facebook.com/Hofcafe.Hoflaerm

Kadavar, Kids Abandoning Destiny Among Vanity and Ruin (2025)

The vague sense of longing hinted toward in the title, the exhaled ‘just want’ in “I Just Want to Be a Sound,” is mirrored in a kind of pop urgency in the song’s chorus. This is the first track Kadavar have put out from their upcoming album of the same name, and in addition to answering how the inclusion of Jascha Kreft on second guitar might have shifted their dynamic — the guitar reaches farther out, giving breadth to the hooky, again pop-ish, longing and the vocal melody that carries it — it’s the first clue as to what Kadavar‘s next LP might have on offer sound-wise. In its range and atmosphere, you could almost call “I Just Want to Be a Sound” psychedelic, but there’s no mistaking the outreach in its production or the underlying structure, even if the bass still brings a bit of heft to its transitions.

Kadavar have been working to build hype leading to releasing this single, and fair enough. They’re a band who thrive on taking chances, and they’re taking a big one here, as it’s almost certain some of their listenership won’t be able to follow them on this path. Knowing that as they surely do, it’s all the more admirable that Kadavar have never capitulated to it. Surely they could be out there smiling through vintage longhair fashion shoots and a thousand differently-named remakes of “Doomsday Machine” and still have an audience. I feel like not knowing what you’re getting, their willingness to ride the edge and push the limits of expectation — is “I Just Want to Be a Sound” heavy? should it want to be? why? — can make it more satisfying, and I know better than to think one single represents the entire album from which it comes, even if it is the leadoff title-track.

Links and audio and such follow. If you’ve got thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments. And remember, Kadavar announced that Fall 2025 tour just a couple days ago as well:

KADAVAR – “I JUST WANT TO BE A SOUND”

I JUST WANT TO BE A SOUND out now & available on all platforms.

Produced by @maxrieger
Thanks to @cloudshillmusic @chris_vosshagen

Pre-save “I Just Want to Be a Sound”: https://kadavarband.lnk.to/ijustwanttobeasoundIN

Album Tracklist:
1. I Just Want To Be A Sound
2. Hysteria
3. Regeneration
4. Let Me Be A Shadow
5. Sunday Mornings
6. Scar On My Guitar
7. Strange Thoughts
8. Truth
9. Star
10. Until The End

Kadavar are:
Lupus Lindemann – Vocals & Guitar
Simon ‘Dragon’ Bouteloup – Bass
Tiger – Drums
Jascha Kreft – Guitar/Keys

https://www.facebook.com/KadavarOfficial/
https://instagram.com/kadavargram/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVmSmatRaSUU2LMhecGKiqg/
https://www.kadavar.com/

https://www.facebook.com/robotorrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/robotorrecords/
https://robotorrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.robotorrecords.com/

Kadavar, “I Just Want to Be a Sound”

This coming Friday, Berlin generational heavy rock forerunners Kadavar are going to put up the first single from their upcoming album, which is titled “I Just Want to Be a Sound.” Fair enough. I don’t know if that’s also the name of the LP or not, I’ve not heard any of it except the snippets in social media stories, and beyond the fact of its existence, a bunch of pre-save links and the cover art, I’ve got nothing for info on the tune or the record from which it comes. I don’t even know if the song’s on the album, come to think of it. Can we ever know anything? Is this chair even real?

Give me a couple seconds to re-sort my reality and I’ll get back to you on the track, hopefully Friday. In the meantime, Kadavar will take next-gen heavy rock’s best-to-date hope, Slomosa, on tour for the bulk of October. I’m a little curious why it’s the Fall tour being announced now, and what Kadavar‘s summer plans might be, but I assume we’ll get there when the album is actually announced in some real, here’s-actual-information kind of way. I have no guarantee that such press release-fodder is impending; I’m just trying to keep up. I couldn’t even find a text list of these dates, and because it’s 2025, I had a handful of places to look. Looks like a good tour, and you’ll note Australia’s Orb joining Kadavar and Slomosa for it.

As per socials:

KADAVAR – “I JUST WANT TO BE A SOUND” EUROPEAN TOUR 2025

Pre-sale Friday, January 24th 12.00PM CET
WWW.KADAVAR.COM

With us, Norway’s finest SLOMOSA and all the way from Australia ORB

Pre-save “I Just Want to Be a Sound”: https://kadavarband.lnk.to/ijustwanttobeasoundIN

Wir haben Bock!!! 🖤

Kadavar are:
Lupus Lindemann – Vocals & Guitar
Simon ‘Dragon’ Bouteloup – Bass
Tiger – Drums
Jascha Kreft – Guitar/Keys

https://www.facebook.com/KadavarOfficial/
https://instagram.com/kadavargram/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVmSmatRaSUU2LMhecGKiqg/
https://www.kadavar.com/

https://www.facebook.com/robotorrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/robotorrecords/
https://robotorrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.robotorrecords.com/

Kadavar, Live at Freak Valley 2024

I don’t know how it was for you, but Berlin’s Kadavar pretty much broke my internet yesterday with the photo and relatively brief post below confirming the completion of their next full-length. It wasn’t quite like they surprise-dropped the album itself, the title of which has not yet been revealed, but clearly there’s excitement and anticipation as they start the promotional cycle and the process of putting the thing out, and reasonably so.

The last studio LP from Kadavar was 2020’s The Isolation Tapes (review here), released in 2020, but even when the world stopped, the band never really did. During the plague, they released two live albums recorded in their own studio and a collaboration with Elder (review here), and as soon as touring reopened, Kadavar were back out. I’ve been lucky enough to see them a couple times at Euro fests in the last two years — in 2024 at Freak Valley (review here) and Bear Stone (review here), and in 2023 at SonicBlast (review here) — and though like many I’ve taken the band for granted over the last 15 or so years, the fact remains that a big part of why I’m so much looking forward to the next Kadavar record is I have no idea what it will sound like.

Part of that comes from the fact that Lupus, Tiger and Dragon (keeping it casual there with the nicknames, I am) brought in guitarist/synthesist Jascha Kreft (Odd Couple) to expand from a trio to a four-piece for the first time, but mostly it’s just from Kadavar themselves. If you look at the course of their evolution over now-going-on-seven records, plus what they bring live, it’s a genuine scope that emerges, and as they’ve shown no signs in hindering their own creative growth, one hopes they continue to push into the unknown. The mere prospect of their doing so, floated while reminding people to sign up for their newsletter, was enough to flood the ol’ timeline. Glad to know I’m not the only one looking forward here.

From socials:

Friends, after 2 years of work, our new album is finally finished. Our first single will be out soon, and we’re super excited! As always, everything will be different, yet it’s still unmistakably Kadavar. Sign up for our newsletter (www.kadavar.com/newsletter) now so you don’t miss any updates. xx

Kadavar are:
Lupus Lindemann – Vocals & Guitar
Simon ‘Dragon’ Bouteloup – Bass
Tiger – Drums
Jascha Kreft – Guitar/Keys

https://www.facebook.com/KadavarOfficial/
https://instagram.com/kadavargram/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVmSmatRaSUU2LMhecGKiqg/
https://www.kadavar.com/

https://www.facebook.com/robotorrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/robotorrecords/
https://robotorrecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.robotorrecords.com/

Kadavar, Studio Live Session Vol. II (2020)

Before Show; In the food tent, then Jam Stage

Me and my silly ADHD brain left my bucket hat back at Rooms Daniela. Big mistake. Also no sunblock anywhere in my luggage, which I feel like is even dumber now that I’m here. There’s no definition of “adult” that doesn’t apply to me. I should be better at this stuff by now.

That will make finding and staying in shade all the more urgent, and my pale form will burn as though torched like the cosmos by Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs themselves, but cancer is later-me’s problem, and he’ll deal with burns, tumors and such as need be. But yeah, might spend more time in the press area today, which is covered. There are also a couple clouds here and there to provide periodic relief. I’ll do my best, but it is sweat-while-stationary hot. More water. It will be okay. The music will start. Night will come.

Took a ride back into town with friends during Mother Vulture yesterday, as I mentioned near the end of that post, but I didn’t actually get to sleep until around 5AM. I was caught up sorting photos, which on my not-that-new-anymore laptop is less efficient than it used to be, and then just couldn’t quite key down. I guess the adrenaline that carried me through had a half-life. So it goes. I got up at 10AM, so not entirely sleepless, but yeah. The second long festival day here is going to be a trip, I think.

You could see the Milky Way banded across the sky as I made my way out last night, which was perhaps all the more valued as I missed out on stargazing during my recent Southwest US jaunt. A stirring reminder that we are all gas and dust revolving at however many hundreds of thousands of miles of hour around a supermassive black hole, which I feel like is worth keeping in mind anytime you might be tempted to think a thing matters or has any kind of permanence as humanity sits one EM pulse away from the Stone Ages. I could go on here, but it doesn’t seem in the spirit of things to be comforted by hopelessness. If nothing matters, you understand, it’s okay that I forgot my hat.

It is impossible to ignore the idyllic nature of this space; a forested canyon carved out by the Mrežnica, if I have it right, and the swimmers, canoers, kayakers, campers, and lawn-layers are correct to take advantage of the river, the trees, the grass, all of it. I’m a little too in my own head for that kind of whatnot, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing the pricelessness of the physical location and layout both for the attendees now and as Bear Stone continues to build on its to-date accomplishments, as one hopes it will.

However cool it will look in the aftermovie and all the posts people will put on Instagram once they’re back where there’s cell signal, the character of this spot is more perfect than a single sensory media can capture. I could do with fewer dudes urinating in random corners — I get it, bro, you’re drunk and you love nature, but the portajohn is two meters that way and the composting toilet is another five beyond that; you don’t need to pee in the river either — but you take the bad with the good, and as regards this place and this fest, it’s an easy trade to make.

Time to start this thing. Here we go.

—

Azutmaga

I’ve false-started on writing about Azutmaga three times now, which I guess means I’ve had enough coffee. The Hungarian instrumental two-piece — I’m pretty sure the guitarist said they were from Hungary; magyarok vannak, szerintem — got started quietly and kept a subdued, meditative vibe throughout, despite getting fairly heavy at times. They have a new album, which I will want to chase down hearing after seeing them play. Put it in my notes to remember. Just guitar and drums, though there were more effects pedals on the floor than some entire bands had, so perhaps an expansive sound isn’t a shock, but the languid groove hit me with the right kind of soothe, and in my shady stairs spot, maybe 10 steps up of the total a-whole-bunch, I watched as the pavilion likewise casually packed out, the comings and goings. A sprig from one of the trees above me fell into my lap and I stuck it behind my ear. It didn’t last, but I mention it because it seemed like a fitting thing to do as Azutmaga played, delving into some slower nod as they emerged from a wandering drift, apparently playing their new record — I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the name and can’t look it up; I assure you I mean no disrespect — and exploring through one fluid jam into the next, no pretense about it but ready to build it into a fuller nod, patiently. The guitar player spent most of the set facing the drummer head on, turned away from the crowd — one imagines them on a differently arranged stage set up next to each other, though I have no idea if they actually do that — but it didn’t matter. The focus was on trance, immersion, and I was grateful for the chance to let go of some of the anxious buzz for a bit.

Rifftree

As pure riff and volume worship as I’ve yet seen at Bear Stone from the weekend’s second duo — and right in a row; a duology of duos –Rifftree had guitar and bass tones dialed in through separate amps to maximize volume and depth, and it worked well. They were more about rolling largesse than Azutmaga initially, and both the bass player and the drummer offered rough-edged vocal shouts, but it was the way the low and high ends of the riffs were arranged that made it work so well for me. One or the other would click off, guitar or bass sound, then snap back in a manner no less satisfying for being so clearly telegraphed. They sped up and slowed down, more High on Fire here, more Sleep there, as will happen, but the dirty tone was vivid and central, with some raw feedback for extra scathe on the sludge and pummel. It was a threat that lingered when they drew back the onslaught for a nod-out, and the set was more effective for that. Not the first time I’ve said this this weekend, I know, but I swear I heard a Kyuss riff in there somewhere. Fair use in the building of such stonerly shrines. They capped with a welcome insistence of chug and shove brought to a sudden halt, and I have to think that if they were called Bong-anything, you’d already have heard of them.

I walked back over to the Sviraj!Jam and caught a few seconds of Colour Haze soundchecking. They weren’t even playing songs yet, though that would come after Rifftree finished and could be heard over by the pavilion for the Mill Stage, but I could still sit for hours and just listen to that band meander. Gladly.

Acidsitter

Throbbing heavy psych rockers Acidsitter, whose slogan “make acid great again” — it’s also the name of their record — just kind of feels tragic coming from the States, where this notion of greatness apparently translates to christofascism, were a good time. The performative elements of their two guitarists’ stage costumes were contrasted by the bassist who mostly sat on an amp case, but the vibe was potent either way. They wove between drift and thrust, synthy flourish for a touch of prog but not much more than that as their priorities were clear from the outset. They would enact a full-tone nod topped with a duly classic-style solo, but they didn’t dwell in any one place for so long as to sacrifice volatility, and wherever they went, they continued to serve the song or the moment they were in, whether that was vocal effects, a guitar played with a wisk, or a sudden turn to garage-ier push. More bass on the synth was the request, which brought about a worthy rumble to match the bass on — wait for it — the bass, and in true acid rock fashion, they felt punk-born even in the calmest parts. I’m not sure which side of their approach was druggier, but after a while it all kind of forms a haze anyway. People caught on as the set played out, and though there was a near-heroic dose of chicanery, Acidsitter held together around the rhythm section and the close-your-eyes-and-go groove thereof. Another record in the notes.

Kayleth

Kayleth on the Mill Stage. I know their stuff, had an idea what was coming, so wasn’t caught off guard when they space-blasted desert riffing with synth and theremin during “We Are Aliens.” Headlining the Mill Stage puts the five-piece in a tight space, but there’s something cool about that too, right? I don’t get to European club shows every decade, so the chance to experience a band in a smaller setting works for me. I’ve heard a few complaints about how the Mill Stage and the Jam Stage should switch, and maybe that would work, but at least with the bands who’ve played it this far, I don’t think it’s held anyone back. Just the opposite, and that goes for Kayleth as well. I can’t always hang in a crowd press — okay, I never can — but I know that’s not the case for everyone or nobody would ever go to gigs, which I’m told people still do sometimes. Kayleth were easily worth showing up for, and I don’t honestly know if they usually do bigger or smaller shows, but they owned that space easily, like veterans, and put on a show that was fueled as much by heart as by the tone of the guitar. Of course the synthesizer expanded their dynamic, but it wasn’t by any means alone in that between the backing vocals, loud/quiet and tempo trades. A lot to dig, so I dug.

Nemeček

A deeply pleasant surprise were Nemeček, whose style brought together pieces of soulful Eastern European folk, progressive rock and post-metal, space rock, electronic noise and probably six or seven other styles I’m not cool enough to know about. They had given a few short teases during soundcheck, playing half of this or that song, and even from that it was clear something equal parts divergent and special was about to take place. I knew nothing about them prior other than they’d be here, but consider myself fortunate to have seen them. All three members sat, though the keyboardist did get up regularly as well, and the acoustic guitar (or something to it; pardon my ignorance if I’m wrong) still tapped deep into a sense of heavy that was about more than sound in terms of atmosphere, though when they hit a pulse coming out of a melodic contemplation, they had power behind it. That made their set that much richer, but again, that wasn’t something they were leaning on, just part of a more encompassing whole. I wonder how it comes across on record — like a lot of things, the production would matter — but even from the photo pit, the textures they unfurled were unlike anything I’ve seen in the last three days, and they spoke to traditionalism in a way that only enhanced their individual impression. I hear they’re local. In any case, Nemeček is a band I am glad to have seen. Now I know.

Blitzpop

Aptly named, if you take the blitz as signaling the energy with which Blitzpop took and commanded the stage and ‘pop’ to mean hooks, of which the four-piece brought plenty enough for everyone and generously offered them in with boogie as a bonus. Classic in a ’70s via ’90s way, they were for sure a turn from the more severe persona cast by Nemeček — perhaps that doesn’t apply to the catchy chorus that went “Kill that motherfucker” — but even that they made fun, though I wouldn’t want to be the motherfucker in question, as their argument was pretty convincing if you count the tempo kick later in the song. A quick plug for merch, then back to the hook. They were another one about whom I knew squat, but they did a bit of “woo! woo! woo!” and ululating to bring the crowd with them and locked soon enough into a groove that at least to my ears sounded like Rage Against the Machine, not that they were at risk at that point in the set — a little more than halfway through, probably — of only doing one thing. They toyed with funk, but never lost track of where a song was headed, and as the direct sun beat down on the Main Stage, they kept the momentum up. In the back, in the shade, where I was, people ate and drank and chatted and dogs played chasing each other around as Blitzpop closed out with a Blur-style “woo hoo” that I have no doubt I’ll still be hearing on repeat in my head when I’m trying to sleep tonight. Hazards of the trade.

I ate. This part is mostly for my wife, to whom I’ve not spoken in an actual day — not unheard of if I’m off somewhere, but rare even so — but it was such a joy that I don’t mind sharing. It was a local cheese that tasted to me like sheep’s milk and was divine, and tomato stuffed with cheese, garlic and truffle flanked with greens — greens! — that was whatever the next step up from divine is. Transcendent? Probably. Not my first experience with the sustaining nature of sustenance, but after nothing but nuts for the last three days, it was a pretty amazing moment in my life that I’d like to remember. It was so good. I finished those, but have more for later. Still a lot of day left, but the sun has started to recede, which is something else I’m thankful for.

Them Moose Rush

Weren’t the band I thought they were, but were way funkier than that band, so I’ll take it. Distinguished by a tendency toward unexpected pivots, you could probably hear as much noise as punk or heavy rock in what they were doing, but it seemed clear in the intention to get bodies moving in the crowd, which it did through the course of their hour-long set, and with a notable range from their guitarist’s vocals, they immediately felt like a standout. Again, not what I had been expecting, but better. I’ll admit I’m having trouble getting over how good the bass sounds here, echoing around as it does, but Them Moose Rush were as much about the subtly mathy twists as the heavier stretches to which they alternately did and didn’t lead, and that coupled with the rampant falsetto and vocal reach, the badass bass, the ready-when-you-are drumming made for another shift on the Main Stage, but a natural one coming off of Blitzpop, who also used heavy rock as a starting point for their own purposes in craft. They went hard a couple times, and had now-we-riff-big there when they needed it, but they were just as likely to find themselves in head-down push or someplace else entirely. I’ve heard a lot of rock and roll this weekend, so if I’m repeating myself, I’m sorry, but the bottom line is they made their own kind of sense stylistically and seemed to work from the ethic of conforming genre to them rather than the other way around.

1000mods

I don’t know how much I have to say about 1000mods that I didn’t say when I saw them like a month ago, but hell, Greece’s foremost heavy rockers once more justified that title, taking the Bear Stone crowd on a ride that barely let up even when a guitar gave out and they had to fill the time with a sampled loop and cymbal wash. I had 1000mods tunes stuck in my head for weeks after Freak Valley, and if the same happens when I leave here, I won’t complain. They moved the festival into the portion of the night that’s basically three headliners back to back (to back), between themselves, Colour Haze and Kadavar, and I don’t know how you don’t get into them if you have any place in your heart for heavy rock. They’re pros; they take the stage and do their show. And if you’ve ever seen them, you know that means something. “Their show.” They got rolling again after the technical interruption like nothing had ever happened. It’s never a good time for that kind of thing, but if you have to deal with it, before “Vidage” is when you want to. The audience, clapping along to the drums — and with good fucking reason — sang along, put hands in the air and gave the band back the energy that burst from the stage, and whether I said it last time or not, it remains true: 1000mods are one of the best bands of their generation. And they’ve never done the same record twice, or given in to hackneyed songwriting or made any music other than that which they needed to make. Anytime you can see them, yes, do that.

Colour Haze

Speaking of generational bands, Colour Haze were soon to follow. I don’t like picking favorites, but I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see take a stage on a given night. They’re always finding a route, some new nuance, some turn or small improvisation or just some moment, to make it special. They made an hour and 15 minutes feel short, but it’s a festival set, so I’ll take what I can get. “Skydancer,” always a highlight. Jan Faszbender’s keys taking the spot where the horns go in “Transformation,” which closed. Mario Oberpucher playing the melody while Stefan Koglek takes a solo. And what on earth can you say about Manfred Merwald’s drumming. It had character, it’s intricate, tight on the guitar, but free-flowing, impactful when it needs to be. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen them, but I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that they’re part of the reason I do this in the first place. They’re inspiring, and only more so as they grow more progressive in sound and build on their foundation of heavy psychedelia, which itself set a path of influence so, so many bands have followed. Bands who at this point don’t even realize they’re influenced by Colour Haze because the bands they were trying to sound like were trying to sound like Colour Haze. That they were themselves is the highest compliment I can give them. They are my favorite band in the world.

Kadavar

Again, I caught them pretty recently, but I had cheesed out early on Kadavar’s set and lived to regret it last time, so I knew I wanted to make up for that to myself at Bear Stone. I know they’re long past the vintage thing, and I love those records too, but they have so much more room to grow now, and they have grown, and when they get on stage, the new and the old come together and it’s all united by the passion in the performance, the strut, the swing, vibrant. I love that they’re such a known quantity — they’re the last band tonight, third of the three headliners; people are familiar — but I have no idea what their next record will sound like beyond “it’ll probably have songs.” That’s the safer bet, anyhow. But whatever shape that takes, the fact of their delivery is that it’s encompassing of decades of heavy rock while remaining entirely their own. Onstage, they’re part glam, part hard-hitting, brazen rockers, never willing to settle artistically or stop pushing the parameters of their sound, but somehow so sure of what they do regardless of outside expectation or pressure. Of course the set was awesome. Kadavar were on a stage and the power didn’t go out. That’s a recipe for a winning way to close ab evening right there. I don’t know the status of the album they had been working on in the last however long, but it’s a no-brainer must-hear in my mind when the time comes. The same “duh, yes” principle applies to whenever the next opportunity to see them live might be.

—

Back at the room now, falling asleep at the keyboard a little bit. Long day, not enough sleep, blah blah you’ve heard it all before. I got a ride back from Nelly and Elias again this evening, and Nelly was the one who brought me food. She also gave me what she called “mishmash,” which was egg, roasted bell peppers, cheese and I think some tomato in there as well. I ate the last of it like five minutes ago and now I am ready for sleep.

Bear Stone’s second and final long day — tomorrow is back to just the Mill Stage — was a banger. You can see the potential all over this festival, and I’m too goddamned tired to see anything clearly right now. Thank you for reading, goodnight, and there are more photos after the read more thing. You know what I mean.

Read more »

At the Fest Grounds

Rain’s back on early in the day. I forewent Doom Yoga and hotel breakfast in favor of sleeping an extra hour. Time will tell on that choice. My head is swimming in last-day logistics; how I’m getting back to the hotel tonight, how and when I’m getting to Frankfurt Airport tomorrow, on and on. So yes, wet and scatterbrained. One or the other would be enough on its own. Poncho may yet make an appearance.

A few people have asked how my mother is doing. First, thank you for reading. I feel like I’ve transposed the haphazardly way this trip ended up being undertaken onto a kind of overarching mania of the experience, but one way or the other, it’s still restorative. She’s recovering from having her knee replaced on Wednesday, is walking, had started physical therapy. These things are months in the healing, but she’s strong and inspiring.

Though it shows little sign of it at the moment, the rain is supposed to stop this afternoon. We’ll see. I was sitting before the start of the show in the smoking tent; the wafting of joint smoke inexplicably cut with tobacco as is the method. Not my thing. I barely had the batteries in the camera when Volker took the stage and it was time to roll, so take that, last-day blues. Good thing my new Freak Valley hoodie is warm.

Sorry in advance for the typos.

—

Splinter

Thank you to Splinter for being the day’s reminder that everything’s okay when the music starts. The Netherlands based classic-heavy four-piece fronted by Douwe Truijens had the Hammond, the boogie, enough sleaze in some of their lyrics to feel like a #metoo waiting to happen (looking at you, “Soviet Schoolgirl,” et al), but there’s no denying the life in their performance. Rain pouring down on the early crowd, Truijens was nonetheless on fire strutting and dancing around the stage with moves drawn from an arena-ready playbook, plus shorty-shorts for the last song because when you’re doing a thing, you go for it. They were tight in addition to putting on a show, and “Every Circus Needs a Clown” from last year’s Role Models (review here) was a highlight in presentation and from-speaker force to go with the conceptual foundation of what they do. That is to say, they’re a band with a plan. And that’s not a negative at all. The songs are catchy and uptempo, fun if you can get on board with euphemism, and it’s over-the-top in just the way it’s supposed to be. Echoing the energetic start of yesterday, pushing it further, Splinter made a field on a cold, rainy afternoon feel like a sweaty nightclub, and for that, one can only be grateful.

Gravy Jones

Uh oh, I think I might dig this band. Another full-size Hammond on stage, cult-ish, classic-ish riffy vibe. I recall digging the Norwegian four-piece’s 2018 debut, Funeral Pyre (review here), for the quirk it brought to genre tropes, but the apparently-don’t-do-this-all-the-time outfit were more cohesive on stage, solid in groove, hinting or maybe more with that organ toward retroist dark-boogie, and on point in the interplay of the keys and guitar. The bluesy but not caricature vocals specifically reminded me of Buffalo, but if Gravy Jones only want you for your body, they’re almost certainly nefarious in that intent. At least some of what they played was taken from an impending follow-up to Funeral Pyre, as was announced from the stage, and wherever/whenever, I take that as good news in terms of such a thing existing at all. Because I just might end up a fan of this band. You know how that happens? Hear a thing. “Oh that’s cool.” Six years pass. You see them. “Oh shit that’s cool.” It was kind of like that watching them close out with “Mountains of Madness.” If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go see if they’ve got anything going at the merch.

Deathchant

My prevailing impression of L.A.’s Deathchant holds firm from seeing them last August at SonicBlast in Portugal (review here), and to save you the time following that link, I’ll just say it’s thar they kick ass. Two guitars that can lean into Thin Lizzy harmonies or thrash out at will, doomly in the title-track of Thrones, which they released last Fall, but gnarly and ripping at any speed, it’s like they play both the Heavy and the Metal sides of heavy metal, but they’re not doing some bullshit disaffected-white-dude aggro thing either. They get on stage, hit it, and groove with tonal presence regardless of a given part’s intensity, drawing from metal and rock on the way, charged and precise, but not so clear in sound as to lose their edge. Perhaps they’re subject to the perils of the band in-between, when it comes to style: too metal for some rockers, too rock for some metallers, but shit, I like bands who don’t fit (also bands who do; in no way does it have to be one or the other, remember), and they played a yet-untitled shouty new song and decided on the spot to call it “Freak Valley.” It ruled and I hope they keep the name. They should probably also have six or seven live records out by now, by rights. I’ll hope to see them again at Desertfest New York later this year.

Mouth

It didn’t take Mouth long to reroute the momentum from Deathchant’s raw Motõrheaded thrust to suit their proggier psychedelic purposes, and the sun came out for them, which can only be called appropriate. I did some liner notes recently for their Vortex Redux semi-reissue LP, and well, I’ll tell you truly, they’re not a band I ever really expected to see live. I mean, it’s a universe of infinite possibility, right? So a thing always could happen, but that doesn’t mean it will. And they were so much fun. Into the music, not trying to convince you that being on stage and playing their songs isn’t the most fun thing in the world. A positive vibe, energy front to back. There was one point where guitarist/vocalist Christian Koller went on his back on the stage while playing a solo and all I could think about was how much of John Dwyer’s dried-up spit from last night must be on there, but beyond that, not a worry in the world while watching them, and their affinities for ’60s psych, ’70s prog and multiple eras of heavy rock came through with poise and passion alike. The keyboard and snare jabs in “Into the Lines” and the slew of builds throughout were exciting and well crafted, and they put everything they had into the show. They weren’t a surprise for me, but it’s kind of a relief sometimes when you see a band you’ve followed for a while and they validate the reasons you liked them in the first place. Mouth did that and improved the weather. That’s a high point in any day.

Black River Delta

Swedish mellow heavy blues rock. Oldschool in ideology, modern in tone. It always takes me a second to stop listening for the stoner to show up when Freak Valley breaks out the bluesier stuff, but Black River Delta did well in the dinnertime slot. And immediately upon thinking of it as that, I realized I was starving. No goulash, but a vegan curry — no I’m not vegan, but probably should be, not the least because it would allow me to subsist exclusively on a variety of homeground nut butters — was the thing. Green beans, carrots, broccoli, onions and peppers of course, but most crucially there were four — yes, I counted, it was four — bites of cauliflower. Cauliflower! For upwards of six minutes while Black River Delta nestled into one comfortable flow after another, I found paradise. By the time another 15 minutes had passed, they’d be finished with their sharply composed and executed fare, delivered smoothly and suited to the style bringing together contemporary and classic as so many here have, but in their own way. And soon after that, the rain would start again, but since it was between bands and Black River Delta were so classy anyhow, I won’t hold it against them. It poured for a minute there, though.

Godsleep

And stopped doing so about 35 seconds after I ran away from the photo pit to get away from the deluge coming down from the roof overhang in front of the stage while Greece’s Godsleep were getting going. I was curious what series of circumstances brought a Rutgers football t-shirt into vocalist Amie Makris’ life — I got a MFA from Rutgers Newark, and my wife did her Ph.D. in New Brunswick; you don’t see a lot of Newjerseynalia in other countries [edit: I asked her later at the merch area and she said she got it from her sister] — but the shirt didn’t last much longer than the rain, and Godsleep’s material had so much push and sweep that the thought was in and out of my head like some kind of asshole who just flies in for the festival and then is gone. They slowed down a bit for the delightfully ’90s-reminiscent “Saturday,” which was a highlight of last Spring’s all-over-the-place-and-only-more-rad-for-it Lies to Survive (review here), but as that record will demonstrate, there’s no lack of variety in what they do regardless of tempo. Not being exclusively sad, slow and miserable, there are aspects of Godsleep’s aesthetic I can relate to more than others, but almost any in-genre boundary pushing is good news as far as I’m concerned, “Permanent Vacation” sort of bridges worlds between explosion-happens-now and more methodical whathaveyou. I found that their harsher moments were complement rather than contrast to the odd bit of desert riffing and sundry other lessons in kicking ass on display. Split LP with Ruff Majik post-haste, please. Both with some screaming, while I’m making requests. Dizzying but undizzied, intermittently furious, deceptively intricate, and rad. They finished by bringing it all back around to the riffs and were better than the veggie curry. Yup. That’s the review.

Speck

Mellow molten instrumentalism from Vienna trio Speck, whose expanses soothed with considerably more cosmic warmth than is offered by, say, actual space. It was my first time seeing the band, whose second album, Eine Gute Reise, came out last Fall, and it took them a while to get going, sure enough, but more, it took me a couple minutes to warm up to it, but all of a sudden I looked up and they were killing it. They’d continue to do so even as a torrential, bucket-style downpour took hold, adding another layer of soak to the already saturated everything and causing a scramble for shelter for some and a very pointed not-scramble from others, which I can respect. Rockpalast has a small tent set up outside the production truck backstage with a tv showing the livestream feed, right next to Lulu’s Garden, and I took advantage of that to wait out the deluge. It didn’t last — it couldn’t or it’d be Freak Lake Festival — but it was harder even than the rain before, and if you were caught in it, you know that’s saying something. I eventually made my way further back to sit someplace drier, but listened as Speck brought their set-long build to its payoff, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the livestream mics picked up the sound of the rain pounding down. If so, all the more reason they should make it into a live record. People mud-moshing like a hippie version of whatever Woodstock that was.

Amyl and the Sniffers

Thrills and such from brash, hard-hitting Aussie punk rockers Amyl and the Sniffers. When they were announced as a headliner, it kind of had me scratching my head, but obviously seeing them you get it in a different way. Their frontwoman, Amyl, came out in an overcoat and stripped it off to reveal her undies while singing a line I interpreted as “I like power,” so yes, if that’s what it was, then clearly. Not gonna take away from the statement or the volume that coincided, but on my coolest day I was never cool enough to be a punker, and today’s certainly not my coolest day. Still, can’t really argue with the ass kicking meted out, and after a certain point, loud groove is loud groove. They shouted out countrymen outfit C.O.F.F.I.N., who played the other day, which was nice, en route to the next onslaught. Rain stopped and started, as it has for most of the day.

I just kind of hung around and let both the noise and the water falling from the sky — because this planet is incredible and to our present knowledge completely unique in the universe in being able to support life and water is why and we treat it like shit; by the way I’m getting on a plane tomorrow morning, so I’m not indemnifying myself, rest assured; if you’re alive to read this you’re complicit there — wash over me while making the rounds saying a few quick goodbyes/hope-to-see-you-next-years. The harsh reality of needing to head to the airport early tomorrow has set in, so better to take care of that earlier than to feel bad about it later. There are a lot of very nice people here, and they are kind to me, and talk to me. I don’t have the kind of brain that always translates being happy to see someone into a smile on my face, but even if you just said hi this weekend, please know it was appreciated. I guess I’m saying goodnight there, too. Guess I got sidetracked talking about Amyl and the Sniffers. Okay.

Kadavar

The one and only. Because as many imitators as they’ve spawned, Kadavar on a level of their own. I knew to expect good things from their still-relatively-recent four-piece incarnation from seeing them play last summer at the aforementioned SonicBlast (review here), and god damn, they’re about as headliner as you get when they take the stage at something like this. They’ve been recording — for what, I don’t know, but I’ve got my hopes — rather than the old tour-tour-tour thing, while it was killer to hear Lupus Lindemann up on stage speak to the crowd in his (and most of their, I assume) native language. He, Tiger, Dragon and Jascha Kreft — last I checked, the ‘new guy’ hadn’t chosen a spirit animal — took the stage to defy the supposition that rock and roll has no more heroes, and while they’re a professional band putting on a show for an audience, on doing so, they throw down like no one else in this thing. “Doomsday Machine” into “Come Back Life” at the start? Come on. I hung around for a few songs, which was a choice facilitated by either the rain mostly stopping or my new Freak Valley hoodie just being soaked enough that I didn’t notice, then made my way out with more than a tinge of sadness at it being over, but secure in the knowledge I’ll see Kadavar again this summer, barring disaster, and as I arrived at the hotel after hailing a cab like the New York metro, throw-your-arm-out-just-at-the-right-time-to-catch-the-driver, it occurred to me to put on the Rockpalast stream. So I got to watch “I Fly Among the Stars” and so on that way. Scrolling back told me I missed “Black Sun” and the clap-along to “Die Baby Die” while in transit, which is a little sad, but I’m grateful for what I got.

—

The same applies to the festival as a whole. I’m grateful for everything I saw and heard — whether it was in accord with my everyday listening habits or not — over the last three days, grateful to Jens for having me over, for Falk watching out for me in the photo pit, to Alex, Marcus, Jamie, and Basti for the rides, and to you for reading any of it if you did. As she often is concerning a wide variety of subjects, The Patient Mrs. was right to give me the push out the door I needed. Such as I’m a duck, I’m a lucky one.

If I have time, I’ll do kind of an epilogue tomorrow, if not, probably Friday, which is probably what I’d prefer to allow for a little actual-processing/distance. We’ll see. Either way, thank you again. More pics after the jump.

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