Black Earth Beneath

To be honest, instrumental stoner/doom is something I'd usually find really lame. However, Black Earth Beneath isn't some half-assed Sabbath worship played by burnout local pizza delivery boys. No, this digs much deeper and is just as informed by psychedelic rock as it is by Sleep and Sabbath. This certainly isn't reinventing the genre, but when you sound this good you don't really need to. The giant riffs set into mountain-moving grooves and the psychedelia envelopes the listener in a foggy cloud of weed smoke.

While this has just as much psychedelic DNA as it does metal, the metal is very much on point. Featuring swaths of groggy distortion, the riffs roll and tumble like massive waves. While pretty much exactly what you'd expect for a stoner metal band, their riffs are huge and they have a penchant for locking into a groove and riding it to oblivion. Between big riffs, the guitar often twists in its shroud of distortion, readying itself for the next big riff tsunami to come crashing down. The production, which is essentially god-tier, plays a big part in what makes this so good. The guitars sound absolutely massive, the bass is able to provide a mammoth backbone and the drums sound absolutely fantastic (that crash cymbal sound is unbelievably sexy). Everything sounds clear - but not too clear, it's definitely still wrapped in a layer of rising marijuana smoke - and impossibly big.

As much as I enjoyed jamming out to the sweet riffs, it's where Monk start to venture off the beaten track where this is best. The middle-eastern meets blues lead guitar is fantastic and otherworldy, which morphs into a blaze of notes in "Hex, To The Sun". There are occasional keyboards, which are surprisingly spooky but thankfully not haunted house kitsch. My favorite moment is the jazz instrumentation that starts off the colossal final track "Zoltan Hypnotic Power". It reminds of more cosmic/mystical jazz; kind of like the stuff Pharaoh Sanders and Alice Coltrane are known for (just a quick little aside: do yourself a favour and check out Journey in Satchidananda). The psychedelics here are awesome, and remind of And the Circus Leaves Town-era Kyuss and maybe even Yawning Man mixed with more recent psychedelic rock.

For the most part, this isn't anything that original. However, it is very well done, has killer production and is just a really awesome album to relax to. In essence, it sounds exactly like its cover art. Looks like we have a pretty sweet album on our hands, bros.