A Great Band From Belgium

Hypnos 69 is a Belgian Stoner Rock band with several influences. I've seen them last year and they perform very well. The musicians play at a high level and I like that saxophone.
The first time I heard The Intrigue Of Perception was on the way home from Roadburn 2007. And after those two days of great music this album really blew my socks off. The album starts easy with The Endless Void and while listening the album gets better and better. My personal highlight is Twisting The Knife.

"A thick and swirly combination stoner rock, psychedelia and 70s guitar rock with a little bit of old Pink Floyd mixed throughout. The Intrigue of Perception is a high-calibre mix of Colour Haze, Euroboys, Spoiler and Grand Funk Railroad, to name but just a few ingredients."
(From AllThatIsHeavy)

Hypnos 69 - The Intrigue Of Perception (2004)

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Do You Want SMOKE?

Ok, this album was available as direct download at this blog. But to bad, the link went down. Smoke from sunny California is a Stoner Rock band with some 70's influences. For you who didn't get this album... DO IT NOW!

Who would've thought that a band named Smoke would play stoner rock? Smoke's music could be compared to a lot of bands, and most of those bands sound pretty much the same too, which immediately makes me wonder if this is really worth the while. Smoke like big fuzzy guitars, pentatonic riffs and whawha-filled solos, The singer sounds somewhat like Danzig meets a bored Lemmy, and isn't too unlike ol' Monster Magnet's Wyndorf. Overall the music sounds really nice, with a thick sound and some nice riffs coming up here and there, though there'll be a lot of "hey, a 'Sabbath riff, hey, a Krawitz riff" exclamations throughout. But once the album's over, I never find any urge to play it over again. Further listens have only brought me to the conclusion that Smoke might be heaps of fun in a live setting, but actually listening to the CD is a bit of a chore and makes me want to drag out that last Goatsnake CD instead.

The production is fairly nice, slightly muddy, but powerful enough to help the music. The whole album is stringed together by short atmospheric interludes, which I suppose is nice, though not really necessary. While the songs vary enough that you can tell them apart, there's no big stylistic leaps here, aside from some piano from time to time. But hey, I suppose a bossanova would be dreadfully out of place in the middle of all this.

There is unfortunately only one song on here that I've taken any particular liking to, and that's "Devil Down". I'm not sure quite what happened there, but this song starts out sounding like a lost Kyuss track, and a good one at that! Then leads into one of Smoke's finer moments. It does, however, lose some steam after a while. Still, this song leads me to the hope that Smoke might have something to them after all, and might write some better music in the future. But for now, I see no reason for anyone but the real stoner rock enthusiasts to bother with Smoke.
(By Øystein H-O at Satan Stole My Teddybear)

Smoke - Smoke Follows Beauty (2002)

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Five Demos In One Post Pt.2

I couple of days ago I posted five demos in one post. Here is the same idea, some upcoming talent that must be heard. Visit the MySpace pages for further info.

Ride The Giant - Demo (2008)

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The Zoids - In Charge EP (2006_

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Nestor - Promo (????)

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Rocksonic - Demo (2009)

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Brutus - Demo (2008)

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Swedish Stoner Metal.

Kaptain Sun is a Stoner band from Sweden with some huge Metal influences. Their music contains everything: Great riffs, nice rhythms and a singer with a great voice.
This is their first EP. After this one they made to full-length albums.

KAPTAIN SUN was formed in the fall of 1998 from the band Clandestine. Clandestine started in 1993 with Anders Håkansson, Marcus Hamrin, Rickard Gustafsson and Martin Lindholm. At this time the bandmembers was about 13 to 16 years old and didn´t know much about life more than that alcohol was strong and that heavy metal was the coolest thing in the world. Two demos and one guitarist later, Andreas Svensson took over the heavy task as a lead guitarist in -98. Clandestine changed from being a gothic metal-band in the spirits of Paradise lost and My dying bride and started to sound more like bands such as Gorefest and Cathedral, and the name "Clandestine" did now longer fit in with the sound or the music. KAPTAIN SUN released their first official release in september 2000 on Rage of achilles records, England. The release was a six track EP called "Trip to vortex". In september 2003 KAPTAIN SUN released their debut album, "Rainbowride", just as before on Rage of achilles records. And now, 2005, KAPTAIN SUN releases their 2nd album, "Blood, rock n´ roll & black angels", on their own label, Metal Breed Records.
(Bio from their website)

Kaptain Sun - Trip To Vortex (2000)

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Five Demos In One Post

Here are some demo recordings I found on the internet. They are recent and very interesting for Stoner fans. So check 'em out.

Psychewalks Of Eternal Karma - Swamp (2009)

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DeDam - Goodmorning Headache (2009)

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Dopefight - Demo (2009)

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Threefold Law - Killer Of The Sultan (2009)

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Keef - Demo (2008)

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Fly On With These Canadian Stoners

Sea Of Green is a Psychedelic Stoner band from Toronto, Canada with some 70's Hard Rock influences. Time To Fly is their second from three albums. This is enjoyable listening stuff when you smoked some "Sea Of Green" (Even if you didn't!) Their version of Pink Floyd's Breathe is very nice!

Sea of Green's live shows -- with their liquid lights, incense, smoke machines, and pyrotechnics -- evoke the heaviness of the early '70s as much as their monstrous, riffed-out, and slightly skewed music. With a sound that draws logical connections between Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, the band produces a head-trip of seriously psychedelic stoner rock. Sea of Green formed in 1999 in Toronto, Canada, when bassist Eric Kuthe (whose parents used to run a rock club in Toronto in the '70s that played plenty of Sabbath, Hendrix, and Grand Funk Railroad) and drummer Chris Bender got together with guitarist Travis Cardinal to jam. Cardinal took over vocal duties and the band began to write songs, citing influences as varied as the Queens of the Stone Age, Cream, and Oasis. They released their first EP, Northern Lights, on the Music Cartel label in July of 2000. The band completed their first full-length in late 2000 at the Chalet in Toronto. Time to Fly, produced by Nick Blagona of Nazareth and Deep Purple fame, and which includes a mind-bending cover of Pink Floyd's "Breathe," secured Sea of Green as one of the leading purveyors of psychedelic metal. On their latest album, Chemical Vacation, drummer Matt Dowd was introduced to the line-up. Due to obvious drug references in many of their lyrics, Sea of Green are largely classified as stoner rock.
(From MySpace)

Like I've said in the "Northern Lights" review, the full-length will show the qualities of this Canadian band and after a lot of spins in my player I must admit, that "Time To Fly" is a high-quality debut. The album includes eleven tracks and a fine cover-version of Pink Floyd's "Breathe". There's still this British-sounding influence in a few of the songs, especially vocalwise. And this time I don't think of Sabbath, it's more in the Psychedelic vein. But I won't say, that SEA OF GREEN are a Psych-Rock band or a Doom band. They are playing classic 70's influenced heavy Rock, that's very catchy, melancholic and positive in words and sound. And they aren't trying to imitate todays boring cliches (you know what I mean!). "Time to Fly" ranges from softer tracks to hard-rocking stuff and so it doesn't belong to the sort of albums, where you think that you've listen only to one long song. Everything is arranged very well and the production of Nick Blagona (Deep Purple, Nazareth, The Police) just fits. This isn't a groundbreaking album, but it's very solid and the more you listen to it the more you'll like it. It was released in 2001 on Rise Above Records and on The Music Cartel. If you want to know more about SEA OF GREEN, check out their homepage.
(Review from Cosmic Lava)

Sea Of Green - Time To Fly (2001)

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Hungarian Stoner Doom Metal

Stereochrist from Hungary play Stoner Doom with a Metal touch. And I must say they do it well. If you like Down, you will like Stereochrist.

Second album by the other half of Hungary's defunct doom maniacs MOOD, featuring Makó Dávid as the new throat. Stereochrist tread across Down, Sabbath and Trouble, amongst others, as influences, and it shows strongly in their riffs and personality. A very southernish sound is present, which partially gives the Down comparison. 50 minutes of pulsating doom rock including Down's "Bury Me In Smoke" as superb bonus track.
(From The Stoned Circle)

Stereochrist - Live Like a Man (Die As a God) (2006)

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Just Drums And Bass

Subrig Destroyer is a Stoner Doom band from Athens, Georgia, U.S.A. This band is just like Om only drums and bass, but here we've got two drummers and one bass! According to their MySpace page, they're unfluenced by the following bands: Electric Wizard, Glazed Baby, Torche, Sons of Otis, High On Fire, Big Business, Om, YOB, Fu Manchu, Pentagram, Dragon Green, Earth, Goatsnake, Pickmans Model and I think that you got a pretty good desciption of their music.
I like this stuff when I'm stoned, those long monotone grinding passages are really enjoying me. See for yourself end let me know your opion.

Loud fuzzed out bass and drums crushing and deep, sounds the way you want a two piece to sound like.
(From MySpace)

Subrig Destroyer - Rode Asunder EP (2009)

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Saint Petersburg Finest.

Here is another fine jewel from Russia. The Grand Astoria from Saint Petersburg make solid Stoner Rock that I can't compare with anything. There are several influences on this album. The highlight is The Man, The Desert, The Sun. This song starts with a Blues thing and then it develops to a Metal jam. Go listen and let me know what you think.

The Grand Astoria - The Grand Astoria (2009)

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Buffalo Stoner.

Chylde is a band hailing from Buffalo, U.S.A. and they make some good sounding Psychedelic Stoner Rock. The guitar players do some outstanding work here. Good riffs, good rhythems, so what do you want more? Go enjoy it!


Within the first three or four minutes of the opening track “Stride”, I am almost sure that the grinding boogie punished one of the speakers to the point where it blew out a woofer. No kidding. That is probably exactly what Buffalo’s Chylde was going for across this thoroughly impressive debut of boomy, doomy riff rock. Call it what you want: “real” metal or “stoner rock” or “doom.” Whatever the proper nomenclature might be, it’s a lock that the psychedelically-tinged, smart, and virtuosic 8-song full length of unabashed heaviness is right in the path of lineage from Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, St. Vitus, Soundgarden, Kyuss, and Black Mountain. Now It Can Be Told trades mightily on the strength of the muscular twin guitars of Jon Bobo and Bryce March and the steady and unrelenting pound from rhythm section bassist Thor Johnnson and drummer Michael Ozimek. Chylde has that rare thing that most bands long for but rarely attain: they lock. There’s a precision that runs across Now It Can Be Told exemplifying a band that simply comes together and makes it pour out—or in this case, build to an explosion.
Recorded to analog tape at Matt Smith’s Hi/Lo Studios in Eden, NY the album at once sounds like it was delicately labored over –every note precise, each take scrutinized - but also bears that feel like it all just flowed out of these four guys. “Lost In A Galaxy” is bleak and heavy blues loaded with lick after lick. “The Ripper” is a tour de force mini-epic where Bobo and March’s guitars twist in a sinewy coda. This is another Buffalo recording (arguably the most in a long time) ready for a vinyl edition.
Bring on the 180g double gatefold version already, Chylde!
(By Donny Kutzbach from Artvoice.com)

Chylde - Now It Can Be Told (2009)

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