After 2 long years of sitting at home in a concert-less world, every band is absolutely itching to get back on the road. While there are definitely still too many people who aren’t concerned by COVID, there are a lot more of us who are, have taken steps to protect ourselves, and are ready to get back to the theater for a good show. That was what I thought while standing in line with my wife to get into the Marquis Theater to see YOB. I was particularly excited for this show. Not just because of YOB, but because I was going to see YOB in one of my favorite venues in Denver. The Marquis Theater ..read more

Messa‘s Close is one of those albums that make me want to jump out of my seat, grab anyone who is not currently listening to it, or the band in general, and shake them while yelling “why for the love of everything that is good are you not listening to this?” You see, while Messa have always been a favorite of mine, especially the excellent Belfry, I could understand why people wouldn’t necessarily connect with their music. It was steeped in a very specific sort of doom and could be inaccessible to people not addicted to the crushing atmosphere that the genre could create. But on Close, Messa h ..read more

Anybody else feel like this was a blur of a year?  (Yes, wtf? -JJ) I was thinking about all the end of the year stuff and realized, “Holy shit, this year was way faster than most, right?” At the same time, it also feels like nothing happened this year. It was a weird year that was both wildly entertaining and outrageously uneventful. Is it because I’m 35 and growing ever older? Could be. Maybe this is about the age when I start leaning in to “old man” qualities, like time seeming to pass faster, waking up with aches in my bones, and complaining about kids skateboarding on the sidewalk. We ..read more

As I was listening to Your Time To Shine, the newest release from Sweden’s Monolord, a nonsequitur thought went through my head. I started thinking about peanut butter. As “The Weary” turned to “To Each Their Own,” I was examining why I might’ve thought about peanut butter. When I buy a jar of peanut butter, be it crunchy or creamy or a store brand versus a national brand, I know what I’m getting and I’m never disappointed. Whether you eat it with jelly, bananas, marshmallows, put it into cookie batter, or do something crazy like put it on a burger (try it sometime), you’re always pretty satis ..read more

Great tidings unto thee, O Heaviest of Bloggers! This column marks the midpoint of the year in doom for us here at Doomsday, and man has it been another great year so far in the slow and low. I keep a spreadsheet of every album I listen to, and I’m seeing nothing but highlights. Thus far, here’s the anecdotal trends for me: We’ve been…umm…blessed (?) with more blackened titles. Hard to use the word “blessed” when describing anything blackened, but it’s true. Bands like The Ruins of Beverast, Body Void, and The Flight of Sleipnir put out heavy duty records this year, and it seems like in previ ..read more

Body Void have all-but settled in as one of extreme music’s elite with their benchmark-setting heaviness, unloading a similar combination of formidable tone, power, and structure as genre heavyweights Primitive Man and Loss. Of course the sludge/doom format lends itself well to aural sadism and tone simping, but it’s also the perfect stage for precisely the kinds of uniquely distraught lyricism these bands employ. Slow tempos coerce listeners to fixate on the power of a single word as much as they do a single distorted note, making it an ideal vehicle for the dismal, taxing, and cathartic topi ..read more

Hail to you all, Heaviest of Bloggers! I hope spring has sprung for most of you. I live in Denver, CO where we don’t technically have spring so much as a single nice sunny day in the mid 60s followed by wet snowstorms that drop the temperature and block out the sun for a few days. Rinse and repeat until June. As I’m getting older, I appreciate the spring more and more. Maybe it’s because of staying at home to prevent the spread of COVID, but I just feel this urge to be outside when it’s nice. Even if it’s just to drive 5 minutes to the grocery store and back, I need to feed the sunshine-and-ni ..read more

Season’s greetings unto thee, O Heaviest of all Bloggers! I have returned once again from campaign season to bring riffs and fuzz unto thee! It’s closing in on the end of the year, and this is the time that the heavy hitters get their content out. It’s a great way to end what has been a most miserable, stressful, and depressing year. I hope all of you have done what you can to maintain your grounding in reality. With the holiday season in full swing, I know I’m having a tough time feeling festive or excited. But I’m doing my best to try to give myself a break where possible, like stuffing my g ..read more

Good. Lord. Listen, 2020 has been a very good year for music in general, post- included. That goes doubly so when you take Covid into account. However, I don’t think any of us were mentally prepared for the absolute deluge of great albums we would have to cover this month. I’m not joking when I say that this might be the most albums we’ve had listed in our group Google Doc for any month since starting this entire column. It also felt like the first time I’ve gone into writing about every “alt” entry (everything I wrote up outside of my top pick) and could have easily made a case for it being m ..read more

There’s not much in this world that I love than epic doom metal done well. When you add in the “traditional” moniker in front of that definition, you elevate things to whole new levels of excitement for me. Alas, it’s impossible for me to actually have eyes on every genre feed out there and so, Stygian Crown‘s epic, traditionally flavored doom metal slipped under my radar. Their self-titled, debut full length from June of this year is nothing short of a behemoth, bristling with pummeling riffs and an underlying dedication to groove that evokes the most visceral of reactions better known in met ..read more