Ice Dragon
Tome of the Future Ancients
Self-Released

You never expect doom merchants to be terribly prolific in anything other than, say, inhaling copious amounts of green smoke and amassing an impressive cult horror movie collection, but it seems Ice Dragon produces an unnatural amount of black fuzz for a band that should be spending the majority of their time getting high and watching Suspiria. Tome of the Future Ancients is the Boston band’s third full-length in as many years (a digital only release for now; it will get a proper vinyl release later in the year on Yersinia Pestis Records) and the battery of torn-paged suspicions and spells it promotes are surely divined by some greater and sinister power. Their expanding canon is hell incarnate, and at 76 minutes, Tome doesn’t dare deign to loosen its grip, and thus Ice Dragon’s weird and wonderful shadow grows ever darker and longer. Much like their two previous albums, 2010′s The Burl, The Earth, The Aether and 2011′s The Sorrowful Sun, Tome masterfully blends the witchy metal of Black Sabbath, the crushing curses of Electric Wizard, and the thick dope smoke of Sleep, but it also integrates a phantasmagoria of heavy psych-drone (“Man Sitting in a Field of Green Grass,” “Astronomical Union,” “Adoration of Ra,” “Infinite Requiem”) into that formula for an all-together eerier descent into the mouth of ritualistic madness. Belly up to the altar, boy, for the Goat’s in league with the Ice Dragon and they’ve got (yet another) grand gift for you.

Listen to Ice Dragon’s Tome of the Future Ancients!

Orange Goblin
A Eulogy for the Damned
Candlelight Records

If you’ve got a beard, own a bong, or ride a bike, chances are this year’s most anticipated release for you is Orange Goblin’s A Eulogy for the Damned. And why not? The band released its first six albums in ten years, and its now been damn near five years since 2007′s Healing Through Fire, so chances are you’ve got one hell of an itch to take to the starry highway to hit up OG’s cosmic dope show once again. But where the UK quartet was once raw and bloozy it is now cooked and mean, and the smoky caravan kitsch it once proudly boasted in its space-brewed riffs has given way to a prouder, louder form. In fact, aside from vocalist Ben Ward’s chain-link preaching, the Southern boogie doom of “Save Me From Myself” or the bold groove of “Return to Mars,” there’s very little left in the way of OG’s former scuzzy self, and what stands before you today is a tyrant fifteen stories tall, an angry world-eater with a heavy metal law to lay the fuck down. And this is a metal album in many ways thanks to songs like “Red Tide Rising,” “Acid Trial,” “The Fog,” “Death of Aquarius,” and “Bishop’s Wolf,” which is not something you could have really said about any past OG album. It is also very much a statement album, the aforementioned songs leaving the deepest cut, but even OG’s familiar stoner rock fare, like the melodic “Stand For Something” and “The Filthy and the Few” contain a demented edge to ‘em, and the acoustic-psych intro on closer “A Eulogy To The Damned” points to OG’s dark, force-fueled approach to making this record. If you’ve ever hoped that Orange Goblin would one day step up and make a power move, that they’d drop all that whiskey-soaked astro-noodling and put some steel and muscle into their tunes, A Eulogy for the Damned is your hope come true.

Listen to “Red Tide Rising” from A Eulogy for the Damned!

Haunted Leather
Desert Spells
Self-Released

Mega-fuzzy mind fuck from the awesomely named Haunted Leather, a trio of robed heatwave hallucinations floating amongst some sandy dunes, spewing these seven desert spells at you like a flood of rubber lava. This vibration worship comes straight out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, of all places, no doubt culled from some wood-paneled, suburban den, its thick shag floor littered with empty cough syrup bottles. I’d cite Om, Naam, Orange Sunshine, Dead Meadow, and Hawkwind as obvious influences on Haunted Leather’s heavy psych, but I think they’ve also spent a lot of time chasing the midnight sun and memorizing kaleidoscope designs. However they get their freak on, there’s a few things I know for sure: the music pulses and oozes like a fat wave of strange, the vocals are a numbing wail of some long lost ancient language, and the whole thing will knock you into a half-conscious state of dopey bliss.

Listen to “Sun It Shines” from Desert Spells!