DOOM CHART - Top 25 Albums for 02/21/15

Top 25 Albums

#). artist - album title

1. Crowned in Earth - Metempsychosis
2. Pombagira - Flesh Throne Press***
3. Kabbalah - Primitve Stone EP
4. Alucarda - Raw Howls
5. Hands of Orlac - Figli Del Crepuscolo†††
6. Evil Spirit - Caulron Messiah††
7. John Carpenter - Lost Themes*
8. Strange Broue - Various EP's
9. Zoltan - Tombs of the Blind Dead EP*
10. Misty Grey - Grey Mist
11. Lord of Doubts - Into the Occult†
12. Patrick Bruss - The Gorgon's Gallery
13. Occultation - Earthbound EP
14. Goat Wizard - Self-Titled
15. Phantomass - Self-Titled
16. Widow & Children - Self-Titled
17. Queen Crescent - Self-Titled***
18. Shepherd - Stereolithic Riffalocalypse
19. Doomraiser - Reverse
20. Burning Saviours - Unholy Tales from the North*
21. Spectral Haze - I.E.V.: Transmutated Nebula Remains*
22. Galleon - Self-Titled
23. Obrero - The Infinite Corridors of Time
24. Acid King - Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere***
25. Saturnalia Temple - To The Other***

*Album available on itunes
** Streaming only
*** Pre-order only
† Available on cassette only
†† Available on vinyl and cassette only
††† Available on vinyl only

• Last Chart
• About the Doom Charts

ALBUM Spotlight on:

GOAT WIZARD – ‘Self-Titled’

This album's been circulating for a while now. Goat Wizard's self-titled album has been out there for about six months and I'm continually horrified by how little response it's gotten. This is the unfortunate album that proves presentation is 9/10ths of an album sale. At a time when fatigue is setting in for many of the cliches adorning stoner rock culture, especially the use of the words "wizard" and "goat" in band names, this excellent band calls themselves Goat Wizard and releases their self-titled debut. That might have been a mis-step.

A fuzz by any other name would be as thick, but alas, this is a materialistic culture that collectively refuses to look past the surface of things. Had they called themselves "The Generic Stoner Band" they might have come across further, but their sound is so much more than a name implies.

First and foremost is an attention to songwriting. The music here is anything but lazy or half-assed. It's uproarious, and though it's not the most entirely revolutionary album you'll ever hear, it's infectious as hell. "Nosferatu" and "Devil's Claw" have been burning up my personal charts since Christmas and I'm still listening to the whole album from time to time. I've included each of those songs on the accompanying podcast to this site, you can find "Nosferatu" at this location and "Devil's Claw" at this location.

When I picked this up (again, around Christmas time) it included a bonus, seventh track called "Dragon Sword", which is the equal of any of the other six tracks though the mood of it is slightly different so I suppose the band didn't feel it fit in with the rest of the album. It doesn't look like that track is still included with the album download, but that's the price of snoozing. There's still time to download the album from bandcamp, however. Just click the link listed above (#14 on the chart) and give it a listen. Throw your biases and pre-conceived notions out the window, Goat Wizard isn't run of the mill stoner / doom rock, it's a cut above. The only thing cliched about it is the band name, unfortunately. Then again, they make no illusions as to what you will hear. No joke, this album kicks ass.