The Kings of Frog Island
III
Elektrohasch

Refusing to pine over the recent demise of his old band, Josiah, Mat Bethancourt is back in action with his royal Frog Island cohorts, serving up another heavy spread of witchy stoner rock as though it’s a sumptuous feast for harlots, heathens, and anyone who celebrates the anarchy of heresy. The Kings have always preferred the power of a crooked staff in their hand to that of a sledgehammer, as evidenced by their strong, wizardly psych-rock leanings, but will on occasion drop some sinister fuzz on you like a bucket of hot oil, which they do here courtesy of “Glebe Street Whores” and “Bride of Suicide.” The rest of the time though it’s all macabre mysticism and serpentine slumbering, a cosmic soul n’ doom that’s as wide open and beautiful as it is thick and smoky, with the deliriously dichotic “More Than I Should Know,” “Ode to Baby Jane,” and “A Cruel Wind Blows” the best of the black sky ballads. III is utterly dope in its romanticism of death, and is music for the gallows so that the bodies can dance.

Listen to “A Cruel Wind Blows” from III!

Black Sleep of Kali
Our Slow Decay
Small Stone

Debut album from Denver’s Black Sleep of Kali, which, despite its name, is a furious force of sludge metal devilry that’s more whack-a-mole doom than it is a slumbering death crawl. And it’s no easy feat keeping up that kind of  eternal energy with an average run time of six minutes for the eight songs laid down here, but I suppose anything is possible when you’re drawing your annihilation inspiration from a dark and violent goddess. Right, so it all rolls heavily along like an avalanche of Baroness worship, but the sonic assault of Our Slow decay isn’t without its groovy riffs, hardcore fluctuations, and punk metal aesthetics either, which makes for a fairly dynamic, anarchic listen that will not only knock your walls down but will piss on your rug, too. Definitely a big-balled gut bucket of bubbling black action, this one.

Listen to “The Crow and The Snake” from Our Slow Decay!

Buy Black Sleep of Kali’s Our Slow Decay from Small Stone!