DESERT PSYCHLIST'S BEST OF 2018

Well the underground rock scene has once again provided those of us who worship at its gnarly altar yet another bumper crop of stonerized grooves, doomic delights and lysergic laments. The following list of 30 is compiled from Desert Psychlist's favourites of 2018, yours may differ but at the end of the day its all rock'n'roll! 
Some eagle eyed readers will notice that some of Desert Psychlist's choices were actually released in 2017, these choices qualify due to them being released after Desert Psychlist's self imposed deadline for last years "Best Of"

#30: GRAJO ~ SLOWGOD II

Grajo have been slowly chipping away at that glass ceiling looming over them for a few years now, trying to reach a wider audience and break their music onto a more international market, "Slowgod II" just might be the album to do that..

#29: LA CADENA PSYCH JAMBAND ~ HOPE?

Stunningly beautiful at times, rocking and raucous at others "Hope?" is an album that delivers on its title, giving "hope" to those that believe good, well played intelligent music will always rise to the top and be noticed not only for its technical prowess but also for its emotional impact.

#28: ALMS ~ ACT ONE

If doom is your thing but you sometimes feel the need to escape from the more cloying elements of intensity and darkness, the genre is known for, then you can't go far wrong by giving Alms "Act One" a spin, Desert Psychlist guarantees you won't be disappointed.

#27: GREEN LUNG ~ FREE THE WITCH
"Free The Witch" sees Green Lung considerably upping their game and adding to their armoury a deeper, fuller dynamic, If the bands demo "Green Man Rising" whetted your appetites for their brand of classy, fuzz drenched intelligent occult rock then "Free The Witch" is gonna blow you taste buds to smithereens



.#26: THAL ~ REACH FOR THE DRAGON'S EYE
All in all THAL have, with "Reach For The Dragon's Eye", created an album that had it been released before the New Year would most certainly have made Desert Psychlist's best of list for 2017, an album that will only not make our best of list for 2018 if 30 better albums are released in this coming year and that my friends is going to be a very tall order!



#25: HAUNT ~ HAUNT
Who remembers nights hiding behind a cushion watching old Italian horror movies? Ok if you watch them now they are not so scary and even pretty laughable but back in their day they were guaranteed to give you sleepless nights and have you jumping at every creak and groan of your old wooden floorboards. Haunt, a trio from Central Illinois, with influences that range from The Beatles to Voivoid, rehash those days of wide eyed panic and bedclothes pulled up high to the neck with their self recorded, self produced debut release "Haunt" a stunning mix of 60's style vocal harmonies and retro flavoured horror inspired hard/classic rock and metal,



#24 : DESERT STORM ~ SENTINELS
"Sentinels" follows on pretty much where Desert Storm's last album "Omniscient" left off except this time around the band have slightly shifted their focus towards a more complex and progressive attack, still as intense and bludgeoning as before but with subtle shades thrown in to add relief and contrast.



#23: LA IGLESIA ATOMICA ~ GRAN MURO DE COMO 
"Gran Muro de Coma" is an astonishing album put together by a band who have, like the space craft in this album, travelled a long, long way to get where they are today. So was it worth all the heartbreak and tears, breakups and reformations that La Iglesia Atomica have been through in their twenty year life span? Well on the evidence of this album the answer to that has to be a resounding YES!


 
 #22: RED SUN ATACAMA ~ LICANCABUR
French men playing South American themed grooves with a sound born from the deserts of North America that will be enjoyed by people from all over the world!



#21: THE GREAT ELECTRIC QUEST ~ CHAPTER II - OF EARTH
"Chapter II - Of Earth" is an album that shows a band moving in the right direction, maturing in both writing and arrangement yet maintaining their sense of fun by not getting overly complicated and intense, a band still preparing for the end of the world by ordering another round of drinks

#20: THE AGE OF TRUTH ~ THRESHOLD 
 In an age of sex scandals, fake news and games of political smoke and mirrors its nice to come across music that still has an element of honesty and integrity about it. Ironic then, given these days when we can no longer rely on the media for those elements, the music in question comes from a band going by the name of The Age of Truth.

#19: HAAN ~ BY THE GRACE OF BLOOD AND GUTS
"New York, New York so good they named it twice" go the words of the song, well if that's the case the collective of Chuck Berrett (vocals), Jordan Melkin (guitar), Dave Maffei (bass/percussion) and Chris Enriquez (drums/percussion ) should maybe of called themselves HAAN, HAAN!



#18: BURN RITUAL ~ BLOOD OF THE RAVEN
Burn Ritual's ability to create mesmerising, hypnotic songs that worm their way into the deepest recesses of your psyche is one that works to great effect throughout "Blood of the Raven", the band jamming trippy, trance like heavy psychedelic dirges that capture, captivate and enchant in equal measure

#17: SUNDRIFTER ~ VISITATIONS

Kyuss shaped rockets flying at speed over a bedrock of insistent grainy groove and hitting their marks with an unerring level of consistency



#16: INDICA BLUES ~ HYMNS FOR A DYING REALM
Indica Blues, with "Hymns For A Dying Realm", have taken traditional doom back into territories the genre was heading towards, before the stoners, droners and black metallers hijacked it and diverted it down new paths, and have done so by not blinkering themselves to those other forms and styles but by amalgamating some, but not all, of those forms into their own sound, creating a sort of hybrid that has is roots in the traditional but it's head in the clouds.



#15: RIVERS OF GORE ~ RIVERS OF GORE
Only three songs but "River of Gore" will take you on an uncompromising, unswerving and unapologetic journey through the darker recesses of a world that we all try to deny is there but all have to deal with on a day to day basis.



#14: DOLLAR LLAMA ~ JUGGERNAUT

"Juggernaut" is possibly Dollar Llama's best album to date combining as it does an undercurrent of gnarly southern strut flecked with elements of raucous stoner/sludge riffage and bluesy hard rock swagger. Add in to this equation the fact that these guys can not only lay down all the grizzled and gnarly refrains you could ever possibly desire but are also not averse to filling their songs with such occasionally outdated notions as swing and melody.

#13: CRYPT TRIP ~ ROOTSTOCK
Some bands celebrate their bluesy influences others prefer to deny them and some bands like Crypt Trip take them and use them as a launchpad into newer waters, twisting the blues around and around like an old flannel wringing out their essence to add to a melting pot full of other essences to create something new and exciting that although rooted to the past is not defined by it. "Rootstock" is an album born from that melting pot.



#12: FORMING THE VOID ~ RIFT
Massive sounding doomic grooves shaded in psychedelic hues and coated in a sheen of metallic prog intricacy make "Rift" not only one of the most anticipated albums of the year but also one of the most enjoyable.



#11: DRUID ~ THE SEVEN SCROLLS
Imagine taking some of the finest musicians from the psychedelic/prog crossover days of the sixties and seventies and placing them in a modern studio, with all its bells and whistles at their disposal, and telling them to make an album, the results, just might, arrive somewhere close to the sound Druid have achieved with their latest album "The Seven Scrolls"



#10: BRIMSTONE COVEN ~ WHAT WAS AND WHAT SHALL BE

Muscle and melody delivered in equal measure, no one does it better than these guys.

#09: WITCH MOUNTAIN ~ WITCH MOUNTAIN
The fact that the band have simply called their new opus "Witch Mountain" speaks volumes and tells us in two words that this is the beginning of a new chapter in Witch Mountain's story, it is the band's way of saying let's not forget our history and what previous members contributed to that history but let's start anew, this is our fresh start, our "ground zero"



#08: BLACK ELEPHANT ~ COSMIC BLUES
Black Elephant, Alessio Caravalli (guitar/vocals), Max Giacosa (guitar), Simone Brunzu (drums) and Marcello De Stefanis (bass), a quartet from Savona, Italy in whose hands the blues have found a safe and loving home



#07: MISSISSIPPI BONES ~ RADIO FREE CONSPIRACY THEORY
A damn fine rock record based around a brilliantly funny and thought provoking concept that combines both story and music in a unique and highly enjoyable way.



#06: THE NECROMANCERS ~ OF BLOOD AND WINE

The Necromancers not only repeat the success of last year's album Servant of the Salem Girl" they surpass it.

#05: HOLY GROVE ~ HOLY GROVE II
Some things in life are worth waiting for especially when those things turn out to be as spine tingling wonderful and as essential as "Holy Grove II"!



#04: A STORM OF LIGHT ~ ANTHROSCENE
A Storm of Light tell us of an end coming, not one led by a horned fallen angel but one led by those wearing Armani and Prada, those in shopping mall fashions and those in charity shop hand me downs, in other words all of us, blind to the fact we leading our very own parade to oblivion and extinction.



#03: HOREHOUND ~ HOLOCENE
Doom comes in many flavours these days from the gothic tinted traditional/epic through stonerized and occult all the way to the extreme and blackened but there are not many bands that touch base with all them...until now



#02: SERGEANT THUNDERHOOF ~ TERRA SOLUS

Class is the first syllable of the word "classic" and classic is the first word of the term "classic rock" and what Sergeant Thunderhoof deliver with "Terra Solus" is some damn fine class classic rock

#01: MERLIN ~ THE WIZARD
Desert Psychlist was privy to snatches of "The Wizard" before its release however those snatches in no way prepared us for the full picture that Merlin unveiled with the finished article. Brilliantly written and arranged with a sound and groove unlike anything they have done before Merlin's "The Wizard" is a genuine mini-masterpiece.

                                        

Well that's it folks thirty albums that over the course of one year Desert Psychlist has been compelled to return to again and again, of course there are many more great albums we could have added to this list but we had to put some sort of limit on things or you would be reading this until next December. It was a great year for the underground scene with many of the big hitters releasing killer albums as well as many new bands seemingly appearing from nowhere with new and exciting grooves, long may this continue.
Thanks to everyone who has supported Desert Psychlist over the last year, the labels, the PR firms, the bands/artists, everyone at The Doom Charts, fellow writers and bloggers and family and friends, Desert Psychlist wishes you all a ROCKING Xmas and a DOOM New Year!

MAMA DOOM ~ FROM BLUE TO BONE .... review

Apologies for arriving a little late to the party on this review but if hadn't been for fellow Doom Charts contributor, and Earmunchies writer, Adam Walsh Desert Psychlist may never arrived at all!

Mama Doom are a four piece band from Poughkeepsie, New York consisting of Mark Holtermann (bass), Chuck Salamone (guitars), Chris Wallner (drums) and Heather Salamone (vocals) who this November released their debut album "From Blue To Bone"

The human voice is a beautiful instrument when trained properly, an instrument able to convey everything from a banshee wail to a guttural rumble. Where the voice really comes into its own however is in that middle ground between the two extremes, a place where you can find anything from soulful and powerful to ethereal and sweet. It is in this middle ground and in that soulful and powerful range that the voice of Mama Doom's Heather Salamone can be found, clean clear with an intriguing mix of bluesy holler and heavy metal howl her uber powerful voice dominates every song on "From Blue To Bone" her impassioned strong tones a true force of nature that once heard can never be forgotten. Backed by some top notch musicians, who really know their way around a good groove, Salamone's voice soars, growls and bellows with unbridled abandon over songs with titles like "Bread", "Traveller", and "Leader", weaving her vocals around the crunching hard rock/metal grooves laid down by her husband Chuck, Holtermann and Wallner with such confidence and ease you could almost believe she was born with a microphone in her hand.

Mama Doom's groove exists in a middle ground somewhere between blues rock and old school heavy metal with little touches of doom and occult rock scattered here and there between the cracks to keep listeners on their toes, "From Blue To Bone" is a good hard rocking opus fronted by a truly impressive voice that will appeal to those who love their grooves hard rocking, gritty and sassy.
Check it out ….

© 2018 Frazer Jones

FAITH IN JANE ~ COUNTRYSIDE .... review

With six incredibly good releases already behind them it is surprising that Maryland's Faith In Jane are not as big internationally as say Clutch or Monster Magnet. Maybe its because the band regularly dip their toes into such fields as reggae and funk that they have not quite made that step up into the upper echelon's of the underground scene, Desert Psychlist doesn't know, but this is a band that deserves wider recognition. The band have just released their seventh album "Countryside" so maybe, just maybe, this is the one that introduces them to a wider audience.

A deep bass heavy groove rolls out the welcome mat on opening track "All Is All" and from there on in its hold on to your hats time as Faith In Jane take the listener on a thrumming rollercoaster ride of stonerized hard rock tinted with elements of proto-metal bluster and funky bluesy swagger. There are times on "Countryside" where the listener is transported back to a time when bands like Grand Funk Railroad and Sir Lord Baltimore were taking their first fledgling flights away from the comfort of the blues into heavier territories but also times that leave you thinking only a band of today could pull of this level of crunching yet soulful heaviness. That soulful element of Faith In Jane's groove is delivered in the shape of guitarist/vocalist Dan Mize's throaty ,clean and grittily powerful voice, his vocal tones sitting somewhere between a bear like roar and a smoky bellow. When Mize is not waxing lyrical he is chopping out crunching powerchords and tearing the air asunder with scorching solo's ably supported throughout by Brendan Winston's growling bass and Alex Llewellyn's solid, tight percussion, the three musicians combining to bring a high level of musical prowess to each and every one of  "Countryside's" eight songs.

From first track "All Is All" to closer "Dream Dealer" "Countryside" is a full on, in your face assault on the senses with only the psych drenched "Blues For Owsley" allowing for any respite, and even then only in its initial stages. Soulful, rocking and loud "Countryside" is an excellent album from an excellent band who deserve, not only on the evidence of this release but also their past endeavours, to be massive!
Check 'em out ….

© 2018 Frazer Jones

CENTER OF THE EARTH ~ TOLKION ....... review

Here, in Desert Psychlist's UK home, Denmark is mostly known for three things Vikings, bacon and beer and not so much for its underground rock scene but that all could change with the emergence of Tikøb based quartet Center of the Earth. Center of the Earth were formed in 2013 and deal in monolithic riffage and tumultuous rhythms overlayed with huge roaring vocals, all of which can be heard gracing their debut album "Tolkion". So let's grab a beer and a bacon sandwich and see what these Vikings have in store for us.

Thunderous is an oft overused word in music reviews but you would be hard pushed to come up with an alternative for the huge walls of noise Center of the Earth assail their listeners ears with. Crushing is another word that gets rolled out a little too often but again it is a word hard to avoid when describing the sonic impact of "Tolkion". Imagine if you can an amalgamation of Sweden's Vokonis and Poland's Dopelord and you might just come close to getting a handle on what Center of the Earth are sonically all about, we are talking riffs so thick you could walk on them, rhythms that could topple tall buildings and vocals that rumble like an Harley-Davidson engine with its baffles removed. Sampled narrative introduces first track "Black Blood of the Earth" then suddenly the song explodes into a low, slow and devastatingly heavy sludge/stoner doom groove decorated with swirling phase drenched guitar solos that set the stage for big grizzled, bear-like bellows to tell their tale of "a land of dead and salted soil". Around the midway mark the songs mood changes and the listener is treated to a strangely hypnotic sparseness with jazzy percussion and grumbling bass the platform around which bluesy guitar colouring is gently weaved before the hammer goes down again and we are hurled back into the songs initial sludgy low and slow groove. After the onslaught of the first track it would be difficult to imagine that Center of the Earth could get any slower. lower or heavier but with "Sons of Gaia" they manage just that, the songs groove akin to the sound of an avalanche of boulders rolling down a mountainside. Title track "Tolkion" follows, a sprawling instrumental that begins with Hawkwindesque spacial effects then morphs into a strangely funky heavy psych workout that then goes off on a myriad of differing tangents. "Doomlords" slowburns into life on booming bass, minimal percussion a low pitched guitar, the song gradually getting heavier and louder as its groove progresses that then, without warning, bursts into a chugging Sabbathesque stoner groove, albeit with totally un-Iommi like guitar solos's. Now for some bands that would be enough and a pretty good way to sign off on a song but Center of the Earth are not just "some band" and instead take the song off into a sludge heavy dirge with reverberating chords, droning bass and pulverising percussion laying the bedrock for a powerfully strong vocal calling for the "lords of doom" to "arise", the band once again slowly ramping up the dynamics before bailing out in a deliciously noisy, almost thrash like, crescendo. Center of the Earth wrap things up with "Cryodome" a doom laden opus brimming over with atmosphere and menace with vocals telling of wizards and devils over a backdrop of dank, dark and surprisingly up-tempo sludgy doomic attack, the band only dropping back into lower, slower territory for its heavy, grinding finale.

So how can we finish this review without resorting to those two words mentioned at the start of this piece? The answer is we don't, Center of the Earth's "Tolkion" is both thundersous AND crushing and the very reasons why you should...
Check it out …..

© 2018 Frazer Jones

ALUNAH ~ AMBER & GOLD .... review

When Alunah vocalist/guitarist Sophie Day announced she was quitting the band she had helped found and fronted for four albums to say it came as a bit of a shock would be an understatement. For a while fans wondered if it could be all over for the UK doom band but thankfully the remaining members, David Day (guitar), Daniel Burchmore (bass) and Jake Mason (drums), vowed to carry on and recruited into their ranks the visually striking and powerfully voiced Siân Greenaway to fill the hole left by Day. The band soon began writing new material to compliment the new dynamic Greenaway's arrival brought to the table the results of which can be heard on the bands latest release "Amber & Gold"

The transition undergone by Alunah in shifting from one vocalist to another seems, from the outside,  an almost seamless one, previous vocalist Day and new singer Greenaway both come from the ethereal school of doomic vocalising and both have a crystal clear clarity to their voices bu where Day had a slightly lighter, folkier tone Greenaway's is darker, stronger and wider in range. Musically Alunah are more or less the same animal with David Day crunching out massive reverberating doomic riffs over Daniel Burchmore's booming bass lines and Jake Mason's huge solid percussion, however the addition of a new singer seems to have brought out a new sense of purpose within the band, they sound fresher, bigger and heavier. First track "Mångata" teases the listener by relegating newbie Greenaway to a more supporting role the singer wailing mournfully over an atmospheric backdrop of low.slow and heavily psychedelic doomic groove decorated with an equally mournful guitar solo. Title track "Amber & Gold" follows and for the first time we get the full force of Greenaway's vocal chops her smooth dark tones swooping and soaring over the songs throbbing dark refrains and thunderous rhythms, her voice pitched deep and dark on the verses, powerful and melodic on the chorus'. "Awn" sees the band tinting their heavy doomic attack with subtle bluesy colourings and little twists of Celtic flavouring with Greenaway telling of souls being crushed and bones being broken, her sultry tones making even mutilation sound beautiful and something to look forward to. The band throw the listener a curveball to finish proceedings in the shape of a cover, Chris Issaks "Wicked Game" a great song in its own right, is taken by Alunah to a whole new different level and sees the band giving the song a doomic makeover its familiar melody given a glossy coating of moody edginess and doomy elegance.

"Amber & Gold" heralds a new chapter in Alunah's ongoing story and fans will be pleased to hear it is a chapter not too radically different from previous chapters, just a little darker and a little more intense, reason enough to...
Check it out ….

© 2018 Frazer Jones

LORD VAPOUR ~ SEMUTA ....... review

Those hairy beardos, Lord Vapour, from the Island of Guernsey in the UK's Channel Isles blew many of us away with their debut "Mill Street Blues" in 2016, this year they return to once again bring mayhem to our ear canals with their latest bluesy, hard rocking offering "Semuta",

Big riffs, big vocals and big rhythms are the order of the day throughout "Semuta", a huge sounding tsunami of raucous groove that comes at you hard and fast and takes no quarter. The fact that three men, Christian Mariess (drums), Henry Fears (guitar) and Joe Le Long (bass & vocals), create a noise akin to a jumbo jet revving up in a cavern is not only astonishing its is also outright mind-blowing but Lord Vapour are not just a huge noise and few choice riffs, buried beneath all the beef and muscle you will find actual songs. From the swirling alternative swampy blues of first track "Burning Planet", with it's wah drenched guitar, bludgeoning bass lines, thundering percussion and strong clean, yet gritty, vocals through to the heavy psych grooves of instrumental closer "Nasubi" "Semuta" is an album that resonates with melody, musicality and swing and ensures that this is an album you, the listener, will be coming back to again and again.

Lord Vapour's "Semuta" is a raucous fuzz drenched romp brimming over with powerful rhythms and crunching riffage that is bound to please those already familiar with their grooves but also win over those coming to the band anew.
Check it out …..

© 2018 Frazer Jones

HOREHOUND ~ HOLOCENE ..... review

Doom comes in many flavours these days from the gothic tinted traditional/epic through stonerized  and occult all the way to the extreme and blackened but there are not many bands that touch base with all them...until now.
Pennsylvannia's Horehound are that rare animal, a band who can comfortably flitter in and out of  doom's sub-genres and niches without losing sense of their own groove and sound, a band who understand doom and all its essences and who are unafraid to explore them all. Not convinced this is possible, well give their latest release "Holocene"(Doom Stew Records) a spin and find out for yourselves.

The big doom build up we alluded to in this reviews intro is slightly negated by the gentle acoustic guitar picking that introduces first track "The Kind" but it is not long before the gentle plucking of nylon strings, jazzy percussive chops and organic sounding bass lines are replaced by a wall of crunching chords, growling bottom end and thunderous drumming. Huge sounding and with a groove deeper than an ocean trench "The Kind" is further enhanced by the strong and distinctive tones of vocalist Shy Kennedy her voice, especially in the songs chorus with its call and response vocal hook, the glistening cherry sitting atop a dark dank soufflé of doomic delight. "Dier's Delight" follows and finds the band blending their heavy doomic attack with alt-rock/grunge asthetics and post-rock colourings while "L'appel du Vide" toys with aspects of occult rock and winds them, courtesy of Brendan Parrish's excellent guitar work, around eastern motifs before suddenly taking off into blackened territory with Kennedy swapping her ethereal voicings for a more guttural, demonic tones. JD Dauer's powerful slow and deliberate percussion combines perfectly with Nick Kopco's thrumming, grizzled bass to lay the foundations for nest track "The Sloth" a song that finds Kennedy pitching her vocals a little lower and darker and in doing so ramps up the songs epic/traditional doom feel. "Anastatica" stays within the epic/traditional territory of the previous track but has a slightly deeper emotive feel, something reflected in what feels like a deeply personal  lyric. "Highball" closes out "Holocene" in a sublime sea of atmospheric stoner doom with Kennedy reverting back to ethereal to give her best vocal performance of the album.

Desert Psychlist could go on for ever on why you should check out "Holocene" and its amalgam of doomic delights but instead we will steal this little snippet from Horehound's Facebook bio  … Fans have described Horehound as, “fucking heavy, doomy, catchy, and downright amazing.”... says it all really.
Check 'em out ….


© 2018 Frazer Jones