Doomed

(This Dark Reign)
by Craig Regala

Three CD set of known, kinda known, and new kids on the stoner/heavy/doom/apres-Sabbath rocker block. For about a buck more than you’d pay for a single disc it’s a hard one to pass up if you need a window into this particular rumpus room. I’m not much impressed by about half the names I didn’t recognize. Too close to being influenced by those defining this mess without standout songs to drive home their utility (if not personality). Doomed’s identity is defined by Rise Above and Man’s Ruin recs even if they only gift us with about 20% of the proceedings. The pneuma of the thing is filled with their breath, the parameters set by their previous releases. These two labels both have very strong rosters and are worth investigating at length if you have any interest in the first sentence of this paragraph. Run right out there to the local disc-a-rama and buy the Acid King/Mystick Krewe Of Clearlight split CD on Man’s Ruin. Also the new Spirit Caravan Elusive Truth. Buy one to play and one to marvel at.

If recent Monster Magnet and Queens Of The Stone Age are a “little light in the loafers” for you (not me, I’m “funny”) and you’ve memorized the first four Sabbath recs, Alice in Chains’ Dirt, Kyuss’ Sky Valley, the last 15 years of Melvins releases and ’91 to ’96 COC and haven’t spent a couple hundred bucks trying to regain that buzz, step up. When you find five or ten new ones to press against your pleasure node, don’t dick around, cut some consumer mustard and buy, buy, buy.

Here’re the names: Angelrot, Astrosonic, Atomic Bitchwax, Black Rock, Bongwater 666, Borgo Pass, Boulder, Carn, Cathedral, Drunk Horse, Dune, Electric Wizard, Five Horse Johnson, 500 Ft. of Pipe, Hangnail, Jed Whitey, Maggott SS, Magnified Eye, Men of Porn, Mothercake, Mugwart, Nice Cat, Orange Goblin, Peace Maker, Pod People, Puny Human, Pushing Up Daisies, Sally, Satellite Circle, Sea of Green, Shallow, sHeavy, Sloth, Slow Horse, Solace, Speedking, Sunride, Supercruiser, Tectonic Break, Throttlerod, Tummler, The Want, We, Zealot. A guy I work with said “it just sounds like dirthead heavy metal by guys that probably like those fucking Stooges records you play in the car.”
(PO Box 30666 Long Beach, CA 90853)