-
-
Stoner HiVe
Druglord – Hear It Breathe
Druglord – Hear It Breathe
Self-released - 2026
Doom, Stoner, Metal
Rated: ****Druglord might have been around for ages... Centuries perhaps. In different shapes and forms… And this incarnation went dark for eight years since releasing New Day Dying in 2018. But now, from the mire rises… A heavier, hungrier form. Druglord is back. Shedding none of their grime, sharpening the edges, forging a release of six songs where suffocating sludge collides with galloping metal, hardcore fury and doom. Doom, but often fast moving, fuzz drenched riffs. Changing between relentless charge and oppressive crawl. It’s the contrast that keeps on dragging you along, just like those ragged snarls and solemn harmonies. Hear It Breathe feels like a storm gathering over a scorched earth, crushing all beneath them before disappearing into a final shimmering haze of noise…
(Written by JK)
Stoner HiVe’s Top 10 Most Listened Artists Last Week…
Stoner HiVe’s
Top 10 Most Listened Artists Last Week…
Buzzard
Stoned Jesus
Heavy On The Ride
Coffin Hunters
Slow Goat
Wailin Storms
Temple King
Old World Astronaut
Rezn
TravoThe most important thing this week… We are honored to present to you new Weekly Top 10 Most Listened art by the one and only Bobby Rayfield from Inherent Records and Monuments In Ruin. Prompted by Shrubbery Terror and his remark that those vinyls on top of each other hurt, Bobby immediately went to work and made this wonderful Stoner HiVe Cabinet, within a week! We can’t thank him enough for all his time and energy, and we can’t wait to start spinning those records all situated nicely in upright position! Grin!
Another week in front of us, which means another one in the books. Hope it’s been a good one for you all! It was a busy one and hectic finish, but that seems to be the status quo recently. We hope to finish a few things we’ve been working on this week or at least before we leave for Down The Hill Festival. We’re leaving for Belgium on Thursday the 20th, so let’s get cracking on all we want to do till then! Last we week we managed to spread the word on that magnificent and free Bootleg Series by King Buffalo, wrote about that wild Ancestro album, that gritty grunge release by Last Band and the weird and eclectic Modula Nation. And we had the privilege and honor to Premiere the new single by Buzzard! The week ended with the new July edition of the Doom Charts going live! Which is always a good way to end things… Right? Here’s hoping we can get some HiVe stuff done this week… We’ve got a lot waiting to be finished… Enjoy yer week!
The Doom Charts for July 2026
DOOM CHARTS
JULY 2026
“I’m a cold heartbreaker, fit to burn
~ misheard Guns ‘n Roses lyrics
And I’ll rip your heart in two
And I’ll leave you lyin’ on the bed
I’ll be out the door before you wake
It’s nothin’ new to you
‘Cause I think we’ve seen that Doom Charts, too, aw…”One of our contributors had the audacity to ask an AI program to predict this month’s Doom Charts Top 5. It got the order wrong, but remarkably, every single one of its predicted albums made the chart. Even more unsettling, three of them landed in the actual Top 5. Scary stuff. I think it’s time to break Sarah Connor out of Pescadero State Hospital. She tried to warn us about this sort of thing. We just assumed she was talking about killer robots. Turns out she might have meant doom metal prediction algorithms…
Scary stuff indeed. There’s an ominous feeling in the air, an uneasy current, a lingering sense of dread. It seems to have become the soundtrack all year round. Ever present, impossible to ignore, yet strangely difficult to put your finger on. Zeitgeist on the Run, as the new Iron Jinn album is aptly titled. The spirit of the age itself appears rattled, looking for somewhere, anywhere, to escape to…
Luckily we can escape into the Heavy Underground. Still, beyond the Top 40 albums below, there might still be a small glimmer of hope. For if an AI can learn to understand the Doom Charts, perhaps it can also come to understand the heavy underground… And the people who pour their heart and soul into keeping this beautiful thing alive. Absolutely not for the algorithms or statistics, but because of the strange, stubborn, irrational passion that keeps it alive. All of us, all over the world, creating, writing, recording, promoting, buying records, filling venues, dubious watering holes and bars, and keeping this music alive simply because we all believe it matters. And maybe, in doing so, it can begin to make sense of us. Of humanity. Of why music matters so much to so many of us. Of why life matters. Right? And well… Because if a machine can learn the value of human life… perhaps we can, too…
Burning hot, blazing and scorching! The brand new July edition of the Doom Charts! Forty amazing albums straight out of the Heavy Underground... And of the ones that made the list I happened to vote for quite a few myself...But as usual, I could have voted for all of them! Starting the rundown with Number 40. That wild Drowner EP by Blackstaff !Welcome to Doom Charts, representing some of the finest bloggers, journalists, radio, podcasters and reviewers from the heavy underground around the globe. Each month, our critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic, progressive and heavy rock albums. The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart below. This is a one-stop shop for the best new albums in the world…
Single Premiere - Buzzard - Disunion
SINGLE PREMIERE
Buzzard - Disunion
Buzzard. Our very own heavy underground town crier... The doom troubadour, the one who continues to deliver universal truths in a way our little niche deserves. His music drifts out of the twilight, carried on woodsmoke and echoes of forgotten hills. And his way of preaching continues in grand form on the new album Hush Now. To be released on October 16th. But right here, right now, we’re honored to present to you the lead single of that new album. Out tomorrow, it’s the opening track and first opening statement: Disunion!Disunion rumbles like classic metal rolling down those hills, rooted in the weight of doom and is filled with the enduring soul of folk. A song, translating those restless nights, when the world feels heavy and the truth is hard won. Shadowed melodies, minor moments of respite, walk hand in hand with those earth shaking riffs. It’s the old bard’s simple lyrics though, which cut like old wisdom and sting of lived experience. And as on the rest of the album, there is anger here, but it burns like watchfire rather than wildfire. Warning and illuminating. Impossible to ignore. Music for wandering hearts and weary spirits alike, the ones that howl beneath the moon, share glasses of bourbon, and wait for those beacons everywhere to be lit. Or Disunion is simply here, as the rest of Hush Now, to remind you that even in dark times… There’s someone sill singing the truth…We’re honored to present to you…
The SINGLE PREMIERE for the new Buzzard album Hush Now called: Disunion
PR Wire:
Buzzard - Hush Now
Scathing, revolutionary doom folk from Massachusetts
Fourth LP “Hush Now” out October 16th, 2026
Lead single "Disunion" out August 7th
Genres: Doom metal, folk rock, americana, stonerBuzzard presents its 4th doom folk metal LP installment Hush Now, expanding on the one-man band's trademark blend of heavy fuzz guitar, Americana instrumentation, and socially relevant songwriting. From mellotron to mandolin, Sabbathian riffs to Dylan-esque wordplay, H.P. Lovecraft to Bill Hicks, Hush Now is the fullest expression yet of Buzzard’s unique artistic vision.
Following the success of the politically charged 2025 EP Everything Is Not Going To Be Alright (expanded to a 10-song LP earlier this year), Hush Now broadens its scope. “Disunion” delivers a state of the union address to the void above. “Fireball” is an ode to the music of America. “Knock on the Door” laments the plight of the pawn. “Contaminate, Consume” reveals the purpose of humanity’s finite tenure on Earth.
The 10-track LP has been mastered for vinyl by MixCave Mastering with original art by Indonesian artist Bintang Pratama. As bonus tracks the CD version of Hush Now adds the 6 singles released in 2026, including “The Bombing Will Continue Until There’s Peace,” “Cinderella’s Midnight Surprise,” and “Hillbilly Fuckery (Original version),” all remastered for digital in a digipak featuring additional artwork by Doomolith. EP Everything Is Not Going To Be Alright will also be released on cassette by Doomshire Tapes on August 7th.
But wait, there’s more! Also coming 10/16 is a 7-inch pressing of “Hillbilly Fuckery (Extended WTF International Choir Version)”, wherein over 50 Buzzard fans contributed recordings of themselves saying, “What the fuck?”
An apocalyptic lullaby for the absurdity that is 2026, Hush Now suggests that everything, in fact, is going to be alright. As the album’s penultimate track “Take Comfort” proclaims:
“One fine day, the Sun will burn this wicked world away/I take comfort from the fact the Sun will explode some day."
Buzzard - Hush Now
Album out October 16th, 2026
Self-released (Digital, Vinyl, CD)
Massachusetts, United States
Exterior front and back artwork by Bintang Pratama
Mastered by Mixcave Mastering
Tracklist:
1. Disunion (4:49)
2. Shutting Down (4:06)
3. Satan, Your Kingdom Shall Come (3:07)
4. Knock on the Door (4:45)
5. Mount Din (3:51)
6. Fireball (3:32)
7. Contaminate, Consume (4:32)
8. Ten Extinction Credits (3:18)
9. Take Comfort (4:55)
10. Doomsayer Fairy Tale (Heavy Groove Story Time) (4:43)
Everything written, performed, and produced by Christopher Thomas Elliott in his home among the eldritch hills of Western Massachusetts.
Modula Nation – The Rift
Modula Nation – The Rift
Tonzonen Records – 2026
Rock, Funk, Prog, Metal, Hardcore, Industrial, Space
Rated: ***In an era obsessed with labels and algorithms, Modula Nation seems determined to tear a rift straight through them. Heehee.. See what we did there? It’s for albums like these that the term crossover must have been invented. The sheer number of genres thrown into the blender is nothing short of astonishing. Even more remarkable is the fact that it all works. Hailing from Graz, Austria, Modula Nation released their debut three-track EP back in 2009. Now they return with The Rift, a record that effortlessly blurs stylistic boundaries. Across its runtime, the band weaves together elements of funk, progressive rock, psychedelia, space rock, metal, hardcore, industrial, synth rock, krautrock, and even pop, creating a sound that is as adventurous as it is cohesive.
With The Rift they mark their territory, they piss on convention and set the tone as a genre-defying rock act. It’s a bold high energy sound that embraces all that the word crossover might stand for. Inventive arrangements, dynamic on all fronts, balancing funky groove, progressive structuring, moments or riffage and atmospheric textures with a highly danceable and fun attitude. The Rift, Silicon Carne and the expansive Soul Fever all showcase the band’s versatility and commitment to push musical boundaries. Or the Faith No More inspired Shred. And we can only praise the more experimental moments that offset all that pop sensible movement. The reward comes later, after a few sessions with The Rift… For they refuse every musical rulebook. The band transforms unpredictability into an addictive journey that reveals something new with every spin…(Written by JK)
Homepage
Bandcamp
Facebook
Instagram
Tonzonen Records
