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!

Wizard’s Beard
Pure Filth
PsycheDOOMelic Records

I can’t think of a better way to end 2011 than reviewing albums by bands with ‘beard’ in their name. Sure, it’s somewhat coincidental that it worked out this way, but I’d be fooling myself if I didn’t think this was also part of some divine plan laid out by the beard Gods. And one must never question the will of the beard Gods, for they are mighty and wise. And extremely handsome. Anyway, the first of these bands is Wizard’s Beard, a UK quartet seemingly hellbent on ruining your day by shoveling a whole pile of, well, pure filth on to it. I gotta say, the sludgy bludgeoning and virulent screaming wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from a band with such a magical name as Wizard’s Beard, and once I got over my disappointment that there’s only one beard in the band (equaling the number of mohawks), I set to letting Pure Filth‘s black-fisted doom seep into my subconscious like a bad spell. It’s but five songs long, though the damage be done, and while I could have used a handful more songs that enlisted the two-minute, grimy groove of “Hemorrhage,” it was “The Albatross” that really left its slow boiling mark around my neck. Pure Filth is good, but more beard would make it totally better.

Go listen to all of Pure Filth right here!

The Heavy Eyes
Heavy Eyes
Self-Released

Full-on Delta doom from these Heavy Eyes, whose debut full-length is dripping with enough Southern cough syrup to make you forget you’re listening to a stoner rock record. Between the tumbleweed riffs of songs like “Wax Apple” and “Where is Wilder” to the Memphis medicine of songs like “Iron Giants” and “It’s Been So long,” Heavy Eyes slides on through the smoke and takes a midnight sail down the winding river of groove. Of course, this is a stoner rock record, a real lid-dropper, and the fuzzy psych-blues of songs like “5%,” “Voytek,” and “Supermoon” play right into your floating hand, man. A real solid album, this one, and The Heavy Eyes do awfully well to treat you like the custodial prize in the landmark case of Cactus V. Clutch, presided over by judge Fu Manchu in the court of Sabbath. Hell, you just have to have an affinity for bands with ‘leaf’ in their name, and The Heavy Eyes will do right by you.

Listen to The Heavy Eyes’  Heavy Eyes right here!