Hippie Killer

Bongripper was a band I first came across in October 2023, so I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on them. I have, however, been listening to doom metal for over a decade.

This album is perhaps a Top 3 release of all time in the realm of stoner/doom metal. As an experience, Hippie Killer takes you through various moods and atmospheres, yet doesn't shy away from being immensely brutal and harsh at times. The album is structured (mostly) in a Song/Ambient/Song/Ambient pattern, which provides an incredibly engulfing atmosphere. The ambient tracks are both warm AND harsh - Tranny Ride, the opening track, is more on the neutral side, and Osaria is perhaps the most friendly track on the album.

The album as a whole is an incredible experience, but there are some song combinations which I'd recommend for listeners who don't necessarily want to invest 80 minutes, but would rather enjoy a small tasting. 'Tranny Ride' into 'Reefer Sutherland' is what opens the album, and is a good display of the contrasting tracklist which swings back and forth from a brutal beating to a warm bath. My personal favourite section of the album is 'Terrible Bear Attack' into 'Je M'appelle' into 'The People Mover'. These three tracks perfectly encapsulate the feel of the album for me. T.B.A is a bit of an outlier within the tracklist, with its speedy drumming and addition of vocals. Fading into Je M'appelle, which begins with the same "screaming" sound on loop for a bit before it suddenly goes into spacey ambiance, almost like the world was deleted, and now you're floating endlessly in space. The People Mover is what completes this section - perhaps the most head-banger riff on the entire album, with beautiful progressions, for over 10 minutes.

Obviously, we can't gloss over the MONSTER of a track, 'Charlie, Burt Reynolds Has Got S*** on You'. A surprisingly emotion-evoking beginning with soft guitar melodies, which progressively moves into increasingly harsher and harsher doom sound, and stands at over 17 minutes long. An incredible track from start to finish.

Overall, this tracklisting is the cream of the crop when it comes to doom and stoner metal. There's something oddly... accepting about this album. While others might be too harsh for beginners to the genre, I'd personally recommend Hippie Killer to anyone who hasn't heard it yet because it mixes two opposing energies very well, and packages them neatly into a single experience. For fans of either ambient music, stoner/doom metal, or perhaps both, Hippie Killer is a must-listen - very few albums can provide such a vivid and gripping (pun intended) experience as this one does.

Looking for a similar experience to this? Check out The Great Barrier Reefer album by the same band, or Dopesmoker by Sleep.