Hoopsnake

Emerging from the undergrowth of Squamish, BC...

This isn't cold Corona and spliff stoner metal, this is cheap malt liquor and resin-caked plastic bong stoner sludge filth. Don't show this to your homeboys who're down to bump Sky Valley while lifting with creatine. Don't show this to your girlfriend who listens to a couple of Baroness and Kylesa songs. For god's sake don't let your mum hear this. Show this to your buddies who have become desensitized by Come My Fanatics and Dopethrone, and who seek an even more monstrous beast.

My introduction to Hoopsnake is a very fond memory. I went to a local Mitochondrion show in some community center in the summer of 2010. I was conversing with a friend of mine who was playing in one of the opening acts when he told me, "you should check out the doom band playing after us, Hoopsnake. They're friends of mine from Squamish and they're heavy as shit". You could say I was intrigued from the get-go. Sure enough, when their time came, my friends and I pushed our way through the stinking crowd of crusties and hippies and were treated to half an hour of hell-risen DOOM! I remember standing there baffled at the sight of dudes roughly my age churning out such evil and yet such undeniably catchy riffs upon riffs. Mitochondrion still ruled, but this really was the case of an unheard of opening band stealing the show. A year later I found their debut LP at the merch stand of an Iskra show, bought it, and continue punishing my ears with it to this day. I guess that makes me one of their biggest fans.

What makes Hoopsnake special is the catchiness of their extremity. While you'll find no shortage of unforgettable riffs on this album, it's still very much an extreme metal record. Take my favourite track, Space Time, for example: the majority of the song is a trundling build up of impenetrable riffs and fucked up trade-off vocals, finally giving way to such a memorable, Hole in the Sky-type, faster riff that's milked for about a full minute before exploding once again into another cosmically slow climaxing riff. Other songs like Weedfiender General, or album opener, Knucklehead, incorporate this juxtaposition more seamlessly. As in the case of Weedfiender, the main riff sounds like something slow off Sabbath's Vol. 4 but with glass-shattering distortion. The vocals are split between the bassist's cavernous death-gurgles for the slow sections and the guitarist's disturbing shriek-wails for the faster bits. The resulting sound is something that will have all ardent doom fans raising their horns and banging their heads at the speed of a snail, but I'd hardly call it accessible.

I really don't know much else about Hoopsnake. My friend bought their demo tape at the show we discovered them at, and it sounded pretty good from the few times I listened to it at his place. It includes a song called Bongsteronimous, and that's awesome. I hope they have another full length in the pipeline. The bottom line is that if you like your doom on the extreme end of things, and heavily encrusted with filth, then this is exactly what you need in your life.