Written by Carcassbomb
I promise I won’t confuse Dopelord, Dopesmoker and Dopethrone since I’ve been listening to a bit of all lately. This is one of the most impressive collaborative albums I’ve heard in modern doom history. It’s a Polish supergroup in a sense. Doom might have started in the UK but these guys are all proving that it could finish in Poland. I’ve been pretty vocal about my love of Spaceslug for over a year now so I am pretty excited about this new track from them and getting to know the other bands a bit better. It’s a really great showcase for the current state of doom which is more alive than ever.
Across the board is top notch recording and production, great for those of us with a semi decent set of headphones. The album art is transcendent, done by Kuba Sokólski. Love how the essence of the project being a four way split is represented here. It’s also psychedelic as fuck, a real nice one to own a physical vinyl of for sure.
Dopelord opens it up with the track Toledo. We’re immediately greeted with the kind of stoner sounds that make us grin ear to ear as we nod along. The vocals are astounding and they use delay/reverb well. The tempo is very calm, balanced riffs with vocals echoing over them. It works together nicely. Solid opener with a nice sample at the beginning. It’s that vintage doom structure and sound wielded in capable hands.
Weedpecker follows with Rise Above. Continuing the relaxed vibe with some spacier sounds, bringing their psychedelic sound to this split. It keeps the momentum going. There’s a bit of a thrash vibe to some of the parts here compared to the others, a rise in energy.
Major Kong takes the third spot with the track The Mechanism. I haven’t heard of these guys before so I’m going to have fun listening through some of their discography in the coming days. I really like the almost proggy approach to the stoner doom sound with quite melodic guitars. It didn’t end up how I expecting with it starting off closer to Motorhead.
Spaceslug finish this beautiful split off with the chillest and post rocky track of them all, Atmosphere. These guys can do no wrong, whether they are playing calm music or abrasive, it doesn’t matter. They’ll make it their own sci fi adventure every time. A great end track that makes me want to hit repeat fast.
Overall this is a stunning showcase of post stoner doom mastery out of Poland. This is the peak standard to contend with for modern doom bands, this is the top tier and it’s all from the same place. An impressive release well worth investigating.
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