Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper (2015)

If you ever wondered, how it would have sounded, if Black Sabbath and the Beatles got merged together in some weird teleportation or cloning accident, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats' The Night Creeper might give you the answer: Imagine Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds played with heavy riffing guitars, eery, distorted vocals and repetitive, hypnotic grooves. A gloomy psychedelic nightmare you may find, you can't get enough from.

Thematically, the album revolves around the eponymous Night Creeper, a Jack-the-Ripper-style serial killer. And it does it brilliantly. The way it transports its distinctive 60s-psychedelica-atmosphere, like an expressionist horror film inside your head. The haunting vocals, the Sabbath-like chord progressions and the very retro production - everything just plays together just brilliantly, creating a truly unique experience.

This said, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats is certainly not everyone's taste and if you are into more conventional, or simply more modern metal, you might not enjoy them too much - for all the reasons mentioned above!

To me, Uncle Acid are one of the most significant discoveries in the recent years. Retro-doom at its finest, with a lot of emotional impact and their own, unique character. Not an easy thing to achieve, but they delivered brilliantly.

Devil Electric (2017)

Devil Electric are a recent discovery of mine. As the name and the cover picture of their debut album suggest, they are another example of the ever-growing Black-Sabbath-inspired, female-fronted proto-doom-occult rock genre. Phew, what a word! And while they certainly don't reinvent the wheel (or their genre), the quartet from Australia knows how to make some excellent, gloomy music.

On the instrumental side, Devil Electric are indeed closely resembling early Black Sabbath. With a lot of heavy,  fuzzy guitar, riffing on doomy intervals and accompanied by a rhythm section that stomps along like an iron behemoth with an impeccable sense of groove in its hulking limbs. So far, so good! Nothing revolutionary, but a very compelling performance. The really outstanding part however, that adds so much character to the band, is its vocalist.

With her bright, light-footed voice she often appears to dance above all the growling, heaviness the band unleashes. The result is - by all the contrast she adds to the sound - a nevertheless quite symbiotic feel, with interesting changes in rhythm and dynamics. It is this dance of contrasts that keeps Devil Electric, contrary to all the familiarity of their songs, varied and engaging - and a little bit unpredictable too. Very effective.

All in all, a strong debut with a lot of 60s- and 70s vibe. It could be the ideal soundtrack to a Hammer film. With misty graveyards, scantly clad witches and generous amounts of blood. Given the number of similar acts I sometimes wish they would stray away from the established, clichéd Black Sabbath-sound a bit more and experiment a bit more with their own style. The potential is certainly there.

(The) Octopus - Supernatural Alliance (2018)

A lot of modern metal, or rock music in general, is pretty formulaic and to be blunt: pretty dull. Its really astonishing that so much talent gets wasted on so uninspired and unexciting material.
Well, The Octopus (or just Octopus, pick your favourite) are different from that. Sure, you could argue that female-fronted retro-psychedelic-metal is not the most inventive of all stylistic choices, but who cares: The Octopus does it so damn well!

As far as I could gather (they are not really well known, you see), they have been around for a while, with their earliest published videos dating back some eight years ago. That's probably part of the reason why their debut album, which just came out this year, sounds so - accomplished.

Catchy riffs, in combination with a superbly groovy rhythm section and on top of it all a very charismatic voice: great ingredients that blend seamlessly together into engaging and diverse songs you just want to listen again and again. Their songwriting and dynamic reminds me quite a lot of Purson or Blood Ceremony, with the heaviness and rock'n'roll drive of Led Zeppelin. Not a bad combination for sure!