Top Doom Metal Artists on Rhapsody Online

Lacuna Coil

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:37:27 -0800

Translated from Italian as "empty spiral," Lacuna Coil works simultaneously within doom, black and goth metal spheres marked by somber keyboards and female singer Cristina Scabbia trading off with male singer Andrea Ferro. The band formed in Milan in 1994, and became virtual household names on the European metal scene through high-profile tours and the commercial and critical reception of their 1999 debut album, In A Reverie. With Comalies, released in 2004, Lacuna Coil continued to gain respect and popularity, avoiding the pop packaging of aesthetically similar band Evanessence. Karmacode, marked by a stylistic shift toward heaviness, followed in 2007. - Mike McGuirk

Mastodon

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:54:32 -0800

Formed by drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Keliher after meeting at a High On Fire show in 1999, Mastodon have turned heads, damaged eardrums, resurrected the twin guitar sorcery of Thin Lizzy and gotten themselves nominated for a Grammy while putting out records that perennially crack the top 10 in critics' year-end best-of polls. Following a nine-song demo in 2000 and an EP in 2001, the quartet released a full-length called Remission in 2002. But it was the Moby Dick-themed Leviathan (2004) that gained them national recognition, and after their third record (Call of the Mastodon, a compilation of early material) appeared in 2006, the band switched from Relapse Records to Warner Bros. and released Blood Mountain later that year. Blood Mountain garnered Mastodon a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance. With appearances in video-game soundtracks, on late-night TV shows and at countless festivals -- not to mention the well-deserved respect they have in metal circles -- Mastodon represent one of the very high points of the extreme music genre. - Mike McGuirk

Type O Negative

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:19:31 -0800

Sometime between their first and second album, Type O Negative underwent a bizarre, lycanthropic transformation from ultra-Heavy Metal meisters to Goth burlesques. Singer Peter Steele nurtured a male vamp sexual persona driven by lust and fascinated by the points of convergence between passion and death. The band, meanwhile, took the tempo way down into a murky cauldron of Satanic mass keyboards and guitar notes that sounded like depth charges. The band's albums and performances invariably attempt to re-enact vaguely pagan Phallus-worship rites that are campier, but in the end only mildly more interesting, than standard "cock rock" proteges. - Chad Driscoll

Down

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 11:07:01 -0800

Down is accidentally a heavy metal supergroup. On its first album, NOLA, the band consisted of New Orleans natives and childhood friends: Pantera singer Phil Anselmo, Pepper Keenan of Corrosion Of Conformity, Eyehategod's Jim Bower and Crowbar's Todd Strange. But for II, released in 2002, the group had been pared back to Anslemo, Kennan and Bower, adding in Texan and former Pantera bassist Rex Brown to complete the roster. Down plays doom-y, boogying southern metal with strong ZZ Top elements and the occasional semi-psychedelic break. On 2007's III: Over the Under, Anselmo broke out of his creative shell, adding emotionally charged lyrics to Down's repertoire. - Jen Guyre

High On Fire

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:05:58 -0800

Formed in the early 2000s by former Sleep guitarist Matt Pike, High on Fire are a mercilessly heavy stoner metal outfit. The major discernable difference between the two bands is that where Sleep specialized in turgid, slow-sludge overkill, High on Fire tend to amp up the tempos. The Sabbath and Melvins influences are still very present in High on Fire, but Pike writes tighter, faster songs and gives his exceptional guitar playing plenty of room for stretching out with explosive, often psychedelic guitar solos. Their debut, The Art of Self Defense, came out in 2001. Highlighted by the incredible "10,000 Years," that album and its 2002 follow-up, Surrounded By Thieves, along with a 2003 release of Sleep's legendary "Dopesmoker" track (a 60-minute exploration of the spot where bong hits and heavy metal mythology meet) heralded a second wind for the whole stoner rock genre. A good thing too, because judging from Songs for the Deaf, it seems like Queens of the Stone Age just don't have all that much to say. Thankfully Pike, and his obsessions with the existence of yetis, mystical Christianity and the heaviest of heavy metal, appears to be far from finished. The band released Blessed Black Wings in 2005, which was produced by the infamous Steve Albini. - Mike McGuirk

Tristania

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:24:42 -0700

Folkloric Scandinavian Black Metal with gothic touches galore -- operatic female backing vocals, funereal bell peals, phantom-of-the-opera organs, the works. So effusively Romantic, it sounds Wagnerian. For all you troll-metal fans looking to make the transition to high-brow classical, this ought to do the trick. - Chad Driscoll

Epica

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:51:35 -0800

Gojira

Fri, 2 Oct 2009 11:02:56 -0700

Formed in 1996 in Bayonne, France, this progressive death/doom metal band didn't make its U.S. debut until 2006 when Prosthetic Records released the acclaimed third full-length From Mars To Sirius. Originally called Godzilla, vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier, guitarist Christian Andreu, bassist Jean-Michel Labadie and drummer Mario Duplantier were legally forced to change their name due to copyright infringement. They decided on Gojira, the Latin translation of the Japanese title for Godzilla. Rooted in death metal, the band also utilizes sludge and doom metal undertones for a progressive, technically advanced sound that lyrically tackles socio-political issues like global warming and spiritual theories like Impermanence. - Jen Guyre

Isis

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:25:28 -0800

Sludge-like guitars move slow and low, creeping along in a huge distorted way. The sound goes from a desolate quiet to a burning (but still slow) growl with eruptions of guitars, drum, and bass and raw screaming vocals. - Mark Murrmann

The Sword

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:46:50 -0800

Austin-based doom quartet the Sword formed in 2003 with singer/guitarist/project mastermind J.D. Cronise at the helm. A year later, the Sword solidified their cast with frontman Cronise, guitarist Kyle Shutt, bassist Bryan Richie and drummer Trivett Wingo. Garnering sonic inspiration from stoner/doom legends Sleep along with heavy thrashers Slayer and early metal progenitors Black Sabbath, this crushing foursome created a much-buzzed-about throwback sound. After debuting at famed local music fest SXSW, the Sword released their venerated first album, Age of Winters, in 2006 to critical acclaim, and returned in 2008 with the darker, heavier Gods of the Earth. - Jen Guyre

Dark Tranquillity

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:55:28 -0700

Dark Tranquillity's vocalist swings in a wide emotional pendulum during each performance. Sometimes he grunts with the voice of an ogre, but he can also croon with the dejected intensity of a suicidal torch singer. Such diversity is essential to the band's wide-ranging music, which integrates technical metal into operatic structures. - Chad Driscoll

Katatonia

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:53:47 -0800

Katatonia create a fusion of 1980s Goth and metal. This doesn't result in the violent blasphemies of Black Metal, but an introverted, melancholic sound. Their weeping guitars spill tears onto downturned, sorrowful vocals. - Marc Kate

Paradise Lost

Sat, 3 Oct 2009 10:45:26 -0700

Few bands have emerged from the dark/Doom/Death Metal scene and shown such a willingness to experiment and evolve. Paradise Lost's earlier recordings are monochromatically brutal -- puissant platters of tomahawking guitars and grunted vocals. Recent efforts have shown the band branching into Prog and Industrial directions, trading in guitar violence for icy keyboards and gruff tones for melodic singing. - Chad Driscoll

Crowbar

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:43:07 -0700

Surely, New Orleans' Crowbar are one of the heaviest bands around -- physically and artistically. Since 1992, these Metal titans have waged a brutal campaign on listeners' peace of mind by assailing them with darkly pessimistic lyrics couched in thick, sludgy riffs. - Chad Driscoll

Sleep

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:03:39 -0700

The torpid opening chords of Sleep's Holy Mountain (1993) signaled to all that the droning drug rock of Black Sabbath was rearing its ugly head once more. With this album, Sleep usurped from Kyuss the Stoner Rock throne. Though these bong-blasted San Franciscans can induce fatigue at times with their endlessly repeated rhythms and hung-out-on-the-line riffs, these guys are gods to devotees of sky-darkening palls of feedback and down-tuned guitar chug. Their fifty-two-minute-long, one-track album Jerusalem (1999) is by far the band's most ambitious study in restraint. For much of the epic bad-Acid Rock trip, the band lies dormant beneath a mesmerizing din of paranoid doom, suddenly leaping into monster riffs and fierce two-guitar unisons. In every song they record, Sleep descend on listeners with the patience and confidence of vultures scenting death. To some, the advance of their black pinions will sound angelic. - Chad Driscoll

Amorphis

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:35:40 -0700

Throughout the '90s, Amorphis have moved from violent, vitriolic aggression to high-Gothic atmospheres. Inspired by the progressive side of Metal, they intertwine their macabre sounds with elaborate orchestrations and create spacious epics of clear instrumentation and vocals. - Marc Kate

November's Doom

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 13:34:37 -0700

Brutal Metal riffing that seems to harbor thoughts of death, doom, and other Metal prefixes. The vocalist's evil growl is matched by slow, chugging guitars harbored in winter. - Jessy Terry

Neurosis

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:35:40 -0700

Neurosis has explored a lot of territory since their formation in the mid-'80s. Like pilgrims returning from travels far past the other side, their words and sounds are those of people who have seen too much. Their words delve into mythology and archetypes that might describe some baroque fantasy, but the world they describe is very much our own -- a harsher reality than we are used to confronting in Western Culture. They speak of human existence at its most extreme abjection and beauty. When listening to Neurosis, you are directed head-first into the abyss, facing your most ferocious demons, gloriously illuminated like totems. Though their music has very obvious roots in Metal's guitar density and roaring vocals, they orchestrate their sounds with a complexity few Metal bands can touch. Strings, samplers and keyboards swim through soul-stealing guitars and accumulate as melodic, oftentimes Ambient passages that bridge songs together and create a grounded respite before the next distorted chord falls. Their instruments fall together as a hypnotic pulse following rhythms that border on tribal. You could certainly listen to Neurosis and just rock out, but do you dare to follow their lead into psychic and spiritual risk? - Marc Kate

Boris

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:38:53 -0800

Active since coming together in 1992, Boris remain unknown in Japan, but internationally they have long been recognized as leaders in experimental metal. Over the course of a 16-album and countless 7-inch career, the trio is largely associated with drone and doom but has also messed with straight rock, stoner, noise and ambient genres. Boris are legendary for unrelentingly slow, feedback-drenched dirges that stretch well over the 60-minute mark. They also construct equally long, highly orchestrated epics as well as shorter (for them) Melvins-influenced slow-jams. Their first album, Absolutego, came out in 1996, and as most of their material was not available in the U.S. until Southern Lord started reissuing their catalog in the early 2000s, they remained a sort of holy grail of stoner metal for years. With their latest releases -- as well as frequent and varied collaborations -- finally readily available, the band has consistently lived up to the hype while paying no attention to the praise given in the mainstream press. Boris may no longer be the sought-after prize of true metal geeks, but they remain a vital and groundbreaking part of the extreme metal scene. - Mike McGuirk

Anathema

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:53:48 -0800

Cemetary

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:07:18 -0700

Suffocation

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:51:08 -0800

When Suffocation vocalist Frank Mullin "sings," it sounds just like a long, sustained eructation*. One listen and you'd swear Satan himself had set up shop in that man's vocal chords. We're talking Exorcist material here. With devastating sonic brutality as their goal, this band set upon their instruments like bloodthirsty marauders. This is motivational music for serial killers.

*belch - Chad Driscoll

Agalloch

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 22:18:02 -0700

While Agalloch's gothic, melancholy moods take hold from the first instant, their subtly crafted melodies take a little longer to seep in. That's okay, as the songs stretch into the eight or ten minute range, the understated, clean-toned guitar figures have time to leave their mark. Spacious production and evil vocal whispers enhance the feeling of sorrowful majesty. - Will York

Om

Thu, 28 May 2009 10:31:14 -0700

Om is the post-Sleep project of bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haikus, the erstwhile rhythm section for that seminal band. Following the 1993 "Dopesmoker" debacle -- in which newly signed Sleep entered into a protracted battle of wills with London Records over the band's refusal to accept that their major-label debut would be anything less than a single 60-plus-minute track about weed -- Sleep fell apart and a disillusioned Cisneros retreated from the music scene for years. In 2004 he and Haikus started jamming again, with the results evolving into Om. San Francisco psych label Holy Mountain released their first collection of material, Variations on a Theme, in 2005. Conference of Birds followed in 2006, and in 2007 Om switched to Southern Lord for their next album, Pilgrimage. Hallmarks of Om's music are deliberately evolving doom metal bass and drum patterns stretched out over long periods, with the changes coming so gradually as to be almost imperceptible. Not surprisingly, the band plays at an absolutely unholy volume live. - Mike McGuirk

Candlemass

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:46:52 -0800

This Swedish band was an early, masterful incarnation of what evolved into Doom Metal. Their inspirations were quite apparent: you can hear Mercyful Fates' sense of devilish drama in songwriter Leif Edling's arrangements and King Diamond's operatic vocal acrobatics are present in Messiah Marcolin's forcefully delivered words of human struggle between mortality and oblivion. But most importantly, Candlemass' emotionally wrought, exasperatingly melancholic sludgescapes of slowly grinding guitars owe a deep dept to Black Sabbath. Their dark, brooding anthems do indeed evoke cold sweats of approaching doom. - Marc Kate

Kylesa

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:10:23 -0700

Eyehategod

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:33:41 -0700

Though its members have scattered like spores into various projects (Down and Soilent Green among them), Eyehategod will long be remembered not just for doing sludge Metal first, but for doing it best. Though it's difficult to recommend a band that gloried in shock for shock's sake and preached a doctrine of inward- and outward-directed violence, Eyehategod deserve to be heard because they had that rare thing in rock 'n' roll -- vision. They played an ultra-heavy, slow and sludgy style of Hardcore that no one had quite done before, but many have duplicated since. Sometimes referred to as "molasses core" because of its thick, murky texture, the musical mutation Eyehategod wrought upon the Hardcore Metal scene was quickly taken up by Grief, Cavity and Bongzilla, to name a few. Taking the heaviness and menace of Black Sabbath to a gratuitous extreme, these bands revel in briar patches of feedback and blue-in-the-face screaming. All of them owe their existence to the innovators in Eyehategod who tinkered with musical anti-matter and created a monster that, in various incarnations, still walks among us. - Chad Driscoll

My Dying Bride

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:50:10 -0800

In the early and mid 1990s, along with fellow Northern Englanders Paradise Lost and Anathema, My Dying Bride formed the third prong in the emergence of doom metal. Over the course of their first three albums, the band took Tony Iommi's most torpid riffological ideas and applied to them both doleful strings and the grunting giant vocals of Aaron Stainthorpe, and then tossed revved up death metal breakdowns into the middle of it all, birthing a new form of metal in the process. With the release of The Angel and the Dark River, in 1996, however, Bride dropped the death-grunt vocals and took their already flowery music in a more gothic direction. A series of albums followed, further distancing the band from their original fanbase and eroding their critical standing, but with 2001's The Dreadful Hours, My Dying Bride seemingly came full circle and returned to the pure heaviness they made their name with. The band continues to put out records, with A Line of Deathless Kings appearing in 2006. - Mike McGuirk

Electric Wizard

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:49:10 -0800

Stoner Rock emerged as a sludgy backlash against the extreme velocity, technicality and brutality of post-Thrash Metal. It endeavored to return to the primal soup that gave rise to Black Sab, Blue Cheer and Deep Purple. No band better exemplifies this trend than England's Electric Wizard. Their sticky resin riffs supply amazingly long hits, songs regularly surpassing the ten-minute mark. If, while listening to bands like Sleep and Acrimony, you find yourself nodding out during the blackened slugfests of down-tuned guitar and droning basslines, you may find this to be a difficult traverse. Electric Wizard manage to out-heavy both of those bands by burrowing even deeper into a molten pitch of de-tuned rumble and piping feedback. The lyrics are pretty churlish, sporting references to a Chthonic world of wizards, warlocks, demons and such, but somehow it doesn't detract. Fans of this stuff come for one thing, basically: godly heavy guitars. Of that, Electric Wizard have a mother lode. - Chad Driscoll

Moonspell

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:04:56 -0700

Portugese metal band with a unique sound that seems to change upon each listen. Majestic Goth vocals and keyboards, shifting Black Metal structures and a clean but aggressive guitar sound.

Saint Vitus

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:21:21 -0800

Before the epic drudgery of '90s Doom Metal bands like Type O Negative and Kyuss, early-'80s artists like Candlemass, Trouble and Saint Vitus had already dredged up the rotting corpses of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple to produce gritty, bass-heavy Metal that moved at a lethargic pace. Saint Vitus' songs, in particular, are painfully slow. Their riffs sound like a dump truck unloading a payload of gravel in slow motion. Their tracks always feel like they are accelerating towards some cumulative velocity, but they usually remain, from beginning to end, an oozing, amorphous form. Vocalist Scott Reagers led their haunting epics of horror and suffering with his chilling, raspy voice. - Marc Kate

Sunn O)))

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:39:39 -0800

Sunn O))) perform no-tempo dirge metal with zero drums and meditative levels of repetition. The band plays live at previously inconceivable volumes (for first-timers) while dressed in black cloaks and shrouded in the disorienting output of multiple fog machines. Main instigators Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson have performed together in Burning Witch and separately in Goatsnake (Anderson) and Khanate (O'Malley). With rare vocals and endless songs that feature subtle, practically subconscious melodic changes, Sunn O))) are generally considered the loudest and most challenging of the drone/doom metal scene. With six proper albums and twice that amount released in live material, splits and EPs, Sunn O))), while best experienced live (and with a lawn chair), manage to translate their holy sorcerer metal to vinyl with no drop-off in quality. That is, as long as you have good headphones or a sound system that can handle bass tone so low one wonders if man was ever really meant to hear them. - Mike McGuirk

Baroness

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:56:11 -0700

Hailing from Savannah, Georgia, this doom-inspired alt metal quartet eclectically mix the ferocity and mood changes of atmospheric metal with the melodic technique of indie rock and post-hardcore, forging their own brand of underground metal. Formed in 2003, Baroness is childhood friends and former Virginia natives John Baizley (guitar, vocals), Brian Blickle (guitar), Summer Welch (bass) and Allen Blickle (drums). After releasing a few EPs and splits early in their career, Baroness earned high praise for their explosive live shows, and their 2007 full-length debut Red Album was released to critical acclaim. Aside from Baroness' technical prowess and humble approach, the band also boasts some of the best cover art in the business, with frontman and notable artist Baizley's graphics gracing every album, t-shirt and show flyer for his own band as well as numerous other cult favorites in the scene. - Jen Guyre

Orange Goblin

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:03:38 -0700

From the smoky depths of Stoner Rock rise Satan's metal devils, Orange Goblin. Spawned in 1995 the band originally called themselves Our Haunted Kingdom, but kicked the name aside after finding a more fitting title for their brooding doom rock. As Orange Goblin, these British Black Sabbath disciples command attention with a three-pronged pitchfork of pure "rawk." Using beefy guitars, pummeling drums and weighty basslines that threaten to crush you, OG create a wall of sound thicker than the air in a room full of smokers. Add production work by Billy Anderson (Melvins, EYEHATEGOD, Neurosis) and you have The Big Black, the Goblin's most explosive force that you don't want to reckon with. Orange Goblin will see you in stoner hell. - Jennifer Maerz

Cult Of Luna

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:35:11 -0700

Cult of Luna -- the doom-based post-metal band from Umea, Sweden -- were formed from the ashes of hardcore punk outfit Eclipse in 1998. Starting with an aggressive and primarily doom/sludge sound on acclaimed early releases Cult of Luna (2001) and The Beyond (2003), CoL began incorporating more ambient tones and textures and elaborately orchestrated song structures into their esoteric style, making 2004's Salvation a hit in the mainstream press. Somewhere Along the Highway carved further into the post-metal dabbling of Salvation, falling slightly short of mastery, but in 2008 the limitless eight-piece returned to heavier form with the labyrinthine sleeper Eternal Kingdom. On this effort, Cult of Luna -- Klas Rydberg (vocals), Johannes Persson (guitars), Erik Olofsson (guitars), Fredrik Kihlberg (guitars), Andreas Johansson (bass), Anders Teglund (keys, samples), Thomas Hedlund (percussion), and Magnus Lindberg (drums) -- celebrate a decade-long career by experimenting with nonconventional instruments like horns and chimes, and building multilayered textures and sounds while still maintaining thick sludge riffing. - Jen Guyre

Virgin Black

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 12:16:18 -0800

Solitude Aeturnus

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:23:56 -0700

With a sound as grandiose as their name, Solitude Aeturnus have been cranking out thunderous metal throughout the '90s. Riffs boom with expansive weight to slow, marching rhythms and specter-like vocals. - Marc Kate

Wolves In The Throne Room

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:39:39 -0800

Formed in Olympia, Wash., in 2002, this ambient black metal quartet mixes the transcendental mindset of their Olympic Mountains hometown with pagan ideology and the primitive sound of '90s Norwegian black metal. Brothers Nathan (guitarist, vocalist) and Aaron Weaver (drummer), along with Will Lindsay (guitarist) and Ross Sewage (bassist), create atmospheric soundscapes that are emotional, pointed and heavy both in sound and statement. Wolves in the Throne Room often perform outdoors and are radical environmentalists. But sociopolitics aside, the band garnered mainstream attention for the lengthy epics and squalling sounds featured on its debut album, Diadem of 12 Stars. After signing with Southern Lord, WITTR released Two Hunters to critical acclaim in 2007, returning in 2009 with Black Cascade. - Jen Guyre

Trouble

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:40:06 -0800

Trouble's sound comes out of the same pit of lost souls as the dirge-like orchestras of Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus. Their songs emanate like thick clouds of black smoke, and their guitars smolder with slow repetitions of anthemic riffs that build without release. Rhythms move like a funeral march that never finds the cemetery, wandering with a dark, somber attitude before switching to the galloping pace of a horse-drawn carriage trying to outrun the night. Words that divide the planes of heaven and hell are shouted with mortal desperation. - Marc Kate

Tiamat

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:39:52 -0800

Tiamat's ambient Metal epics drive melodic hooks into your skin, while taking you on a downward tailspin into the abyss. Singer Johan Edlund's voice is a constant malevolent presence stirring just beneath the surface of keyboard textures and tempestuous guitar jams. Tiamat's symphonic Death Metal songs emanate from "the dark side of the moon" and the eclipsed regions of the soul. - Chad Driscoll

Dawn Of Winter

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:57:16 -0800

Acid King

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:03:39 -0700

Pure evil bleeds slowly out of impossibly thick guitars, deep female vocals and sluggish, crushing drums. Scary back-masked drum parts and constant reminders of the ill will that lurks within us all will have you running to your nearest church for sanctuary. - Mark Murrmann

Church of Misery

Fri, 29 May 2009 09:34:37 -0700

Witchfinder General

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:59:20 -0700

Amesoeurs

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:28:27 -0700

Soilent Green

Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:33:45 -0700

Long considered one of the very heaviest and technically complicated groups to emerge from the muck of the New Orleans sludge metal/doom/grindcore scene, Soilent Green have made a name for themselves despite offering precious few releases (four full-lengths) for a band that's been together since 1988. Due in part to founding guitarist Brian Patton's longtime side gig playing guitar beside Jimmy Bower in Eyehategod, Soilent Green has seen enough hard times to dismantle 90% of the other bands on earth. Two van accidents, the murder in 2004 of bassist Scott Williams by his deranged roommate and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina would be enough to deep-six almost anybody, but Soilent Green has continued to record (albeit at their usual pace) and in 2007 moved from Relapse Records to Metal Blade. Jamming elements of hardcore and death metal up against slowed-down Southern rock riffs and torpid Sabbath doom, then putting it all to some weird time signature, Soilent Green's records can be an education in metal -- if you can get past Ben Falgoust's truly hateful lyrics and consistently disturbing vocal schizophrenia. - Mike McGuirk

Sons of Otis

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:35:42 -0800

Sons of Otis are masters of the natural phenomenon of sublimation whereby gases are converted directly into solids. Their ultra-heavy Space Rock can turn mere air into walls of noise (or make the walls around you crumble into thin air). - Chad Driscoll

Spirit Caravan

Sun, 8 Feb 2009 09:56:59 -0800

Robot Lords of Tokyo

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:41:57 -0800

Belly Full of Eggs

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:51:22 -0700