Cathedral - The Carnival Bizarre (1995)

Doom'n'Roll! That was the spontaneous reaction of one of the guests, when I started playing Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) at a party once. I think, there is barely a better name for what the band was doing on this album.

If is doom-metal usually identified with slow, dragging rhythms and bleak expressions of desperation, Carnival Bizarre is - to me, and obviously to my guest as well - a lively and irresistibly good-mooded record, that just makes you want to move. Yeah, its party music, whether Cathedral intended that or not and lets be honest: song titles like Fangalacticus Supergoria really must been a hell lot of fun to make up!

The band itself was founded in 1989, by Lee Dorrian, after he left Napalm Death, where he wasn't happy with the direction the band took, namely death metal. Something I definitely can emphasize with. And thank the heavens (or hell) for his decision. It brought us a band that influenced and enriched the genre like not many before.

Stilistically, Carnival Bizarre features, as you would expect in doom, heavy riffs that rival the Himalayas (or HP Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness, your choice), combined with driving and varied rock-grooves and Dorrian's characteristic shouty, but clean voice. He might not have the range of a Ronnie James Dio, but he certainly knows how to transport excitement.

It is maybe a bit of an untypical doom-record, but certainly it is an excellent one regardless. Oh, and its hard to top the imagery of their video to Hopkins. What a hedonistic delight!

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone (2000)

Electric Wizard has seen quite a soar in popularity in recent time. Something I find pleasantly surprising, since their music isn't exactly the most mass-market compatible. Maybe though, that's exactly the reason why: there is a certain underground authenticity in music that consciously tries to be as far away as possible from the calculated, watered-down mainstream style that so many bands pursue. This doesn't means they aren't accessible, though. With the right ears, attuned to Black Sabbath's Master of Reality or some Cathedral, with the hypnotic repetition of Hawkwind's far-out space-trips, Electric Wizard quickly speaks to you.

To me, their greatest album remains Dopethrone from the year 2000. A raw, droning masterpiece, recorded, according to bandleader Jus Oborn, literally in a drug and alcohol-induced stupor - and it shows in the best sense possible. At its time, Dopethrone did expand the boundaries of metal into a weird, tribal ritual of excess.

While being genuinely dark and monstrous in its sound, with massive guitar-riffs and shouting, madman-vocals drenched with distortion, the album also has an undeniable, and actually quite irresistible, groove and playfulness to it. The album really rocks, which is quite an achievement in this context. It may be a ride through hell and purgatory, but it does it with style and grace, showcasing some musical talent and inspiration that really set Electric Wizard  apart from most bands of the genre.

In a way it's a bit tragic that Electric Wizard had their peak so early on. It's not like the successor-albums were bad - to the contrary - but in Dopethrone the band achieved a perfect balance of chaotic, raw emotion and the discipline that allows them to actually take all their energy and turn it into a truly mastrful album.

The Psychedelic Avengers - ...and the Decterian Blood Empire (2006)

This is probably the best band you have never heard of. The Psychedelic Avengers were founded in 2004 as a collaborative project of a number of artists and bands, the best known ones probably being Colour Haze and Vibravoid. I think their goal is best described with their own words on the back of their first album: 'This is the first psych-o-phonic, in-head science fiction b-movie for inner-eye-listening pleasures, which is being transvisualized via the soundtrack to your very own imaginary space, psych, teen, mutant, love, trash, porn, noize sci-fi movie'. And yes, its really all that!

The songs usually feature lengthy, pulp-inspired titles like 'The discovery of the lost transdimensional time-space vortex on the iceplanet of Vistar 7' (and that's not even one of their weirdest) and are colourful mixtures of stoner, psychedelic and electro, combined with radio-play like sequences to drive the story ahead. The result is more than compelling.

Be it the tranqulity of space, trippy warp-jumps, radio broadcasts from deep space, or tense battle-scenes - the Psychedelic Avengers are utterly immersing and entertaining. So many different moods, so many different musical worlds to discover.

From the two albums they released, their second ...and the Decterian Blood Empire is the more refined and coherent one. The tracks are more focused, with the overarching storyline of the peaceful civilisations of the Galaxy having to defend themselves against the... you guess. it. The album doesn't gives up any of its inventiveness and diversity though. It just flows and takes you on a wild ride through the ups and downs. An amazing "Space Opera" in the sense of the word.

A pity the Psychedelic Avengers disappeared into obscurity (or into the depths of space) after this album. They really created a masterpiece I love listening to again and again.

As if to prove how obscure this album is, there is only one song from it on Youtube: