Top Ten Records of 2016: Pete's choices.

Let's dispatch with the pleasantries shall we, the "2016 has been a crap year" boohooing, and let's just do this thing! The one thing that can be said about 2016 is, as ever, that the music has been fucking awesome!

10. MAKE - Pilgrimage Of Loathing

Pilgrimage Of Loathing is a very challenging record, one that covers the fucked up human race and political/scumbag shittyness to a tee. MAKE come at you with as much bile and anger as they can muster, while still carrying the post-rock abstractness to take you to their higher-plain of serenity. It's a challenging listen, but a vital one.

9. Domadora - The Violent Mystical Sukuma

The best Earthless record not to be done by Earthless, and that's a compliment, as the French psychedelic/stoner/rockers play with their sounds rather than just imitate. Some tracks are short balls to the wall riffathons, others 16 minute instrumental epics. An excellent record.

8. Steinsopp - Steinsopp

The "Stoner's Stoner Record" of 2016! With indecipherable vocals sung through a megaphone from a different galaxy, chugging stoner riffs, and songs sending you tripping into the next track, Steinsopp have pulled of something mightily impressive here.

7. Spaceslug - Lemanis

Muffled heavy stoner doom is as claustraphobic as it is freeing, and it is done perfectly here. Spaceslug are so good at biding their time at being heavy, that you don't realise you're being crushed by their riffs until they're already on top of you, pressuring down onto your wind pipe.

6. Swan Valley Heights - Swan Valley Heights

One of the best stoner-rock records of the year. Since way back in January, this record has hit multiple repeats, and it still crushes to this day. I've found it works really well down the gym too!

5. Son Of A Witch - Thrones In The Sky

Thrones In The Sky was released right back in the early stages of the year, and it's finally seeing a release on vinyl at the beginning of 2017, and it's just what these Brazilians deserve as the record is all kinds of heavy-hazy-doomy-psychedelic perfection.

4. Messa - Belfry

Gorgeous paganistic style doom from these Italians with ambient drone undertones. Belfry is utterly spellbinding, in no part down to the haunting vocals of Sara, which flitters between heavy seventies style hard rock to nothing but delicate vocals gliding along the wind. Beautifully crushing!

3.Domkraft - The End Of Electricity

A late comer in the year's releases, but one that's made such an impact that it demand your attention. Loud, heavy riffs, psychedelic touches, pummelling beats, and did I mention those riffs? Awesome tunes from these Swedes and yet more proof that Magnetic Eye records can barely put a foot wrong!

2. Whores. - Gold

After the release of two excellent EPs, anticipation was very high for their debut record, and the Noise merchants did not disappoint, with a record that is as loud as they could possibly go, with riffs heavier and more relentless than before. Gold proved that Whores. are the real deal.

1. Cough - Still They Pray

Hypnotically heavy and perfectly psyched-out, this record has been ever present on my turntable ever since I found it in my local record store. Cough are a band who are continuously improving and growing with each release, and the doom stampede here is a pleasure to accompany every dark gruesome night.

Until next year, wherever you are on the planet, have a HEAVY one! Pete.

LP Review: Pilgrimage of Loathing by MAKE

Only a year on from the release of one of our favourite records of 2015, North Carolina’s MAKE have released another album to make us stop what we’re doing and check how many superlatives we can fit into a short review, because these guys have gone one better than last year’s The Golden Veil, and created a record which is gonna really screw with your senses, and what’s better this time round is quite a menacing thing: MAKE are fucking angry!

The record opens with a slowly built follow on from last year’s release, before the sheer wall of noise hits you as ‘The Somnambulist’ hits you with what MAKE are all about this time round; musical stylings that flicker between beautiful atmospherics, and harsh dark doom that flows with anger and discontent with the society around them. But one of the stunning things about this band is that like a flick of the switch, they can turn the sound into a chanting like state of pleasure without losing any of their flow, never letting the listener settle for a moment, knowing what will come next. ‘Birthed Into A Grave They Made For You’ gets a little more deathly with the vocals, while the sludging riffs and war chant drumming makes your blood boil, echoing MAKE’s own disgust and vengeance. It’s a glorious aggression!

The astral plain style playing is there though, with the poetically named ‘Two Hawks Fucking’ sending psychedelic post-rock vibes reverberating through the speakers, the aftermath of the siege that came before it, right before ‘Human Garbage’ pins you down and continues to relentlessly punish any sort of sensitivity you had left. Their cover of The Stooges’ ‘Dirt’ is as Iggy would have sounded if a diet of doom, pain, blackness, demonic chants, and religious hypocrisy were his staple diet on a daily basis, and it is on point! It would be close to being an album highlight if it were possible to dissect the record into individual songs, and not viewed as a whole, as that is what is necessary with MAKE record; listened to as full records, all the way through, repeatedly.

It has been quite a journey listening to MAKE progress and develop through the years as a band, from Trephine to last year’s stunning The Golden Veil, to their latest spectacular effort, Pilgrimage of Loathing, we have become engrained in the band, willing them to achieve greater things with each effort, and they’re not disappointing. Their sound is combining all the elements that they’ve been teasing with in the past, the sludge/black metal scowls, the ethereal riffs from both hellish and tranquil plains of existence, and soundscapes that challenge the ears, toeing the lines between post-rock/metal, black metal, sludge, and good ol’ heavy rock, MAKE have seriously mastered their craft!

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Writers' Top Ten records 2015: Pete

We’ve pretty much made it to the end of 2015, a year which has pushed me to the farthest realms of what it means to be a human, from heart-break and loss, to unquestionable happiness and excitement, back to misery again, bit of mundanity, confusion, questioning, joy, acceptance, and change: basically everything that makes each of us human, and in the end, that is what living is, otherwise, without those things, what’s the point? Anyway, what I’m really getting to here, is for me, which will be just like you, there’s a lot of shit going on in your life, but you keep going, and one of the things that helps us all through it, is what we choose to soundtrack our lives. Music will always get you through!

So what has got me through this year? Here is a list of my Top Ten records of 2015, you might not agree, you might not have heard of one or two, but they’re the records I’ve returned to over the year, and so mean just that little bit more to me. Here we go…

10. Rosy Finch – ‘Witchboro’

A record split into two parts, one hard rocking, the other hauntingly doom. It's beauty lies in it's ghost-like movements, always keeping you on the edge as it glides between stoner, grunge, and doom with a menacing ease.

9. Mutoid Man – ‘Bleeder’

Stephen Brodsky's best musical project to date! The record shreds with layers upon layers of face shredding riffs and scorched vocals that make you scream "FUCK YEAH!". The record's over before you know it, but it's a hell of a ride.

8. Stoned Jesus – ‘The Harvest’

Stoned Jesus are a band who are constantly improving as artists, and The Harvest is the pinnacle of their career so far: tighter musicianship, heavier guitars, and more precise well written songs. It's short, but it's heavy in all the right places. Here come the robots!

7. 1886 – ‘Before The Fog Covers The Mount’

To quote specifically from the review, this record is all about dreamy riffs, acid-dropping stoner tempos, and laid-back vocals, its a record to obsess over! It was released 11 months ago, but it still burns brightly amongst the masses of records that have followed.

6. Clutch – ‘Psychic Warfare’

It's a new Clutch record! I don't need to say anything else. You probably own it anyway!

5. Elder – ‘Lore’

The opening track from Lore, 'Compendium' is the most played song on my MP3 this year. Elder have created a stunning heavy psyche record which has left anyone else in their genre in awe. Talk about a game changer!

4. MAKE – ‘The Golden Veil’

The Golden Veil stands out in this list as it's heavily focused on post-metal/rock vibes, but it is a record which draws so much emotion out of you, leaving your body a traumatised mess on completion, that it cannot be ignored. It is a record of utter beauty.

3. Void Cruiser – ‘Overstaying My Welcome’

The record came from nowhere, I didn't have high expectations, but when it played it simply blew me away. 8 songs of sheer stoner rock heaven. You will love this record.

2. The Heavy Eyes – ‘He Dreams Of Lions’

The Heavy Eyes keep on improving with each release with their heavy blues sound, and on their third record, they've turned things up once again, creating, faster, heavier, stoner/blues songs that are exhilarating from start to finish. What these guys will create next is teaming with anticipation.

1.Boar – ‘Veneficae’

From the first full spin of this record, I knew this was going to be the best record I had heard this year. Combining elements of doom and metal, alongside the overwhelming dominance of stoner and psychedelic tendencies, Veneficae is a heavy heavy record that at times leaves you stunned with it's power, crushing, and breathing life back into you once more. This record gives you everything, you just have to be ready to take it.

A special mention has to go to ‘Purple’ by Baroness, only got to hear it after I had compiled this list, but it’s sounding immense, and ‘The Gospel According To Shawn James & The Shapeshifters’ by Shawn James &The Shapeshifters. It’s not stoner, sludge, or doom, but bloody hell is it fantastic!

Music will always be with you, whatever life throws your way, so look at 2016 head on, grab it by the balls, turn the record up to 11, and show them just what you’re made of.

Happy Holidays Everyone.

Pete.