Diaries of Doom

Tusks up! Bradfordian stoner doom titans Son of Boar return this week with the storming new single U.F.O. Son of Boar are on fine form with their first new track since Satanic Panic (Revelations) a couple of years ago. No less than twelve minutes of monolithic riff worship, to put it bluntly, it's spacey and heavy as fuck throughout and doesn't so much announce their return but scream it from the top of a mountain. A holy mountain, perhaps. In the band's own words, U.F.O. is a vagabond’s tale of fungal experimentation. The song seeks to take listeners on a journey through the honest retelling of youthful exploration, while channelling feelings of impending doom, confusion, and wonder. Producer Kurt Wood has helped the band find and focus their sound, delivering cacophonous drums from Luke Doran, paired with the thunder-flow of Gaz Bates' bass playing. Both form the sturdy foundations upon which a wall of guitar sounds is built by Lyndon Birchall and Adam Waddell, all ...

At War With The Sun will drop their newest EP Remembrance on 12th September 2025. It's hench, it's miserable, it's funeral doom as fuck - if you like it crushingly low, slow and heavy, then this one's for you! This EP will be released digitally and as a digipak, with artwork sombrely created by the band themselves. At War With The Sun are an atmospheric funeral doom metal power trio hailing from the bleakest parts of Worcestershire, coming together to create droning, sludgy soundscapes to draw the light out of a room for fans of Thou, Neurosis and Khanate. Expect a procession of battering-ram heavy, hook laden palm-muted riffs interspersed with sad instrumental passages and full-on funeral doom sections ranging from 40-60 BPM. Add in a subtle dose of psychedelia and the end result is a sound which is fresh while remaining resolutely old school in its approach. Remembrance was produced by Pete MacBeth at Studio 58, Herefordshire. Tour dates: 14th September - Wor...

There’s something brewing in the Black Country right now, but Kensei are showing the world that it isn’t just the beer. After bulldozing the Birmingham Metal 2 The Masses in 2024 and destroying their slot at Bloodstock Festival - hopefully the first of many - their first full-length outing is a confident, tightly-wound assault that blends razor sharp melodeath with the heft of 00s metalcore. Possibly the biggest pit the New Blood Stage saw in 2024 The ominous Intro sets the scene like an oncoming storm before End of Days makes its entrance with impact, crushing the listener with thrashy, harmonised riffing and tasty drum fills. Vocalist Dave wastes little time snarling venomously across the verse, with a big melodic chorus and a blistering breakdown that’ll see a future bruise or two in the pit. As album openers go, this one lays the foundations well. It's a real statement of intent. Lucid , which follows, might just be the crown jewel here. Its Phrygian-flavoured riffing bring...

  Amongst the finest, doomiest power trios to come out of Nottinghamshire are Master Charger, who return this week with their first full length since Origin of the Lugubrious from the summer of 2020, following on from 2023's ripping Social Witch Hunt single. Posthumous Resurrection picks up where they'd left off, following in the footsteps of the 70s heavy rock/heavy blues overlords that built the path to stoner, doom and sludge, with low-tuned vintage riffs and an almighty fuzzy heaviness that threatens to crush your skull. A swirling, crashing drum intro sees in Thy Kingdom Polluted , a doom n' groove rager. It's led by a cool, nostalgic lead guitar lick early on, nodding to the greats of psychedelic music, before the band settle into a sludgy rager. John James' throat-shredding vocals carry his trademark intense grit before a guitar solo drenched in wah takes over nearer to the end. It's a powerful way to start the album ahead of the slightly Melvins-y Onl...

Ascendancy Promotions bought Doom Over Birmingham to the Midlands in March, setting a murky atmosphere over The Flapper with a varied lineup that had much to offer for fans of the low and slow. Drawing an impressive crowd in Birmingham as the clear result of hard work promoting the show, the room is full of people very early on in the evening, with the whole event genuinely feeling like the place to be for supporters of underground live music. After openers Suffering, my first band of the night was Tumanduumband , who I've seen many times over the years. Flanked by corpses onstage and with a Satanic aesthetic, they get heads nodding away in rhythm with their dark, hazy doom metal. With setlist staples like Throne Of Grief and Dread Lord shaking the venue's foundations, they know how to use the simple power of the riff to devastating effect, using just a bass guitar and a drum kit to deconstruct doom down to its very core. They're followed by the elegant, dramatic funeral...

Back with their second album and a revitalised lineup, Bradford quartet Ironrat - consisting of members of Wolves In Winter, Lazarus Blackstar, Psychlona, Hollow Earth, and former members of Monolith Cult and Khang - have produced a real statement of intent with Beneath It All, their first record since 2015. My introduction to them was at Bloodstock Festival in 2017, with tracks like the low-tuned Weed Machine (which was re-recorded in 2023) sticking out in my memory. However, as circumstance would have it, Ironrat had a quieter spell for a few years, but the boys are firmly back in town with forty minutes of power, melody, riffs and groove. Kicking off with high octane rock and roll attitude, title track Beneath It All gets the record spinning with a simple guitar riff that sets the tone nicely. Its energy is clearly designed for live shows, before the song develops and drops into a slower stoner blues breakdown, given character with some vocal harmonisations, before the fist pumpi...