Also, don’t forget to check out the Doom Charts May Peroration post and last months Doom Charts are coming out this friday.
Anyway, here is what I listened and the playlist link is at the bottom!

++2026.06 - Last month I mostly listened to++:

1. Tidal Wave
2. The Heavy Eyes
3. Bong Wizard
4. The Dharma Chain
5. Ancestro
6. Umoora
7. Cornucopia
8. Dhyana
9. Child
10. Okay You Win
11. Upupayāma
12. The Claypool Lennon Delirium
13. Black Glow
14. Fuzzrider
15. Red Sun

++By playtime (h:mm:ss)++:

1. Dhyana 7:59:48
2. Tidal Wave 5:56:59
3. Umoora 3:16:49
4. Ancestro 3:16:13
5. The Heavy Eyes 2:58:57

Track obsession: Tidal Wave - Shapeshifter and The Orb (the whole album really)

Bubbling under: Red Sun, Slift, The Monks, Thee Oh Sees (a.k.a OCS, The Oh Sees, Oh Sees), Chainlacing, Mirror Of My Soul, Plaindrifter, The Asteroid Belt, Monolord, Psyclops

The 1001 project: The Yardbirds, Radiohead, Amy Winehouse, Barry Adamson, The Style Council, PJ Harvey

Total artists in rotation: 218

Relevant albums:
Tidal Wave - Volume Tree (2026)
The Heavy Eyes - Focus (2026)
Bong Wizard - Transylvanian Munchies (2026)
The Dharma Chain - Some Kind Of Pure State (2026)
Ancestro - En Ruinas (2026)
Umoora - This Machine Will Kill Us (2026)
Cornucopia - Songs For Unfortunate Times (2026, bandcamp only)
Child - Rebirth (2026)
Dhyana - Storehouse of Zen Reflections (2026, bandcamp only)
Okay You Win - End of Days (2026)
Upupayāma - Honesty Flowers (2026)
The Claypool Lennon Delirium - The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy (2026)
Black Glow - Waves and Mirrors, Mirrors and Waves (2026)
Fuzzrider - Desert Boogie (2026)
Red Sun - Songs From Hidden Places (2026)
The Yardbirds - Roger the Engineer (1966)

A track from each Top 10 artist can be found from this playlist (sort by 'date added' if applicable): http://dy.fi/iio
(behind the short url are links to the same playlist in Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, Spotify, and finally Soundiiz which you can use to transfer the playlist to your chosen platform).

I’m publishing this post a bit earlier than usual, because tomorrow starts the Finnish Juhannus, also know as midsummer solstice holiday festivities, and everyone (including me) will be off to one or another remote location. Usually the woods in the middle of nowhere.

So let’s get on with it!

The first recommendation is by Dhyana and it’s called the 'Storehouse of Zen Reflections'. It’s a lot of 11 older songs from the desk drawer, which he deemed ready to release now as a compilation. They're from all over his career, so you get a bit of everything, but all of it is droney "dharma doom" as he calls it. It’s also over 3 hours long and priced at “name your price” (a.k.a. download for free or for ~1 €/$ you get to add it to your collection). Just sayin’ 😉

Over at Instagram he said: “This release features forgotten tracks and other songs that I finally found a place for. I'm very glad to share these with all of you and I hope yall enjoy hearing tracks with similar sounds to some of my older works and some things worked on last year including 5 guitar drone tracks to end it off.”
I’ve been a big fan of this one man band ever since I found them around the release of ‘Shikantaza’ album, which is still my favourite.

dhyanadoom.bandcamp.com - storehouse-of-zen-reflections
Instagram - Musicbrainz

This Swedish band Tidal Wave, that I’d all but forgotten, latest album has got to be my good mood album of the summer! There are Dio-esque high pitched vocals with a Mustasch’s Ralf-like flair to the them, some traditional fuzzed out guitar goodness, great drum action and over all really excellent feel to it.
Just the kind of combo which I like… but I have to admit; it felt dangerously close to something I usually do not like at first, but it keeps finding it’s way to my playlist and definately gets submitted to Doom Charts!

album.link/Tidal Wave - Volume Tree
tidalwaveswe.com - Facebook - Musicbrainz

The Dharma Chain was another band that at first I didn’t think I’ll like and it kind of hung around in the half way of my playlist of promos. But little by little I dragged it higher the top and keep clicking play over it.
My notes only had "neo-psychedelic shoegaze" written by it, but if I have to describe it even more right this moment, I’d add that they have some goth-ey rock vibes too.

They are an Australian band that relocated to Berlin, Germany and now call it home, I assume. The blurb for the album had this bit in it; "with no front person, roles constantly shift between members, allowing multiple singers and guitarists to build a powerful wall of sound."

album.link/The Dharma Chain - Some Kind of Pure State
thedharmachain.com - Bandcamp - Musicbrainz

Hope you enjoy these albums and have a great midsummer solstice (and don’t drown)! 🔥

In spite of my bitching and moaning, check out the Doom Charts for May 2026!

Anyway, below are the three releases I’m recommend you check out and then at the end you can find what my Doom Charts list was like.

This post was sent to newsletter subscribers on 8.6.2026. Subscribe to the newsletter below.

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First one is Italian bänd called Upupayāma. They play psychedelic folk rock that reminds me of Goat, The Heads and the time when I found this type of music. This is hard to put into words, but it is a comforting sounds of music that picks a lot of psychedelic elements from 60’s music and marries them with world music elements.

album.link: Upupayama - Honesty Flowers
Bandcamp - Discogs - Musicbrainz

Øresund Space Collective is a danish collective of musicians, visual artists and what-have-you. They’ve been creatings improvised space rock for quite a while now and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them live quite a few times, but also meet some of the personnel (greets to Dr. Space 🫡). It’s what you’d expect and then some.

album.link: Øresund Space Collective - Progably You're Wrong
Bandcamp - Discogs - Musicbrainz

Three piece instrumental heavy psych rock band from California, collaborating with Isaiah Mitchell (of Earthless fame) for some twin-guitar action. Phantom Logic delivers some gloriuous spaceous psychedelic rock with lots of guitars!

album-link: Phantom Logic - Salton Dust
Musicbrainz - Instagram

My top ten from last month were:

1. Yawning Balch - Volume Four
2. Liquify - Voyage To The Outer Worlds
3. Blke - Blke
4. The Dead At Sea - III
5. El Altar Del Holocausto - Ecos
6. Warp Transmission - Excess Currents
7. Maliciouz - Sympathypnotic Intercession
8. Elder - Through Zero
9. Conan - D.I.Y Series 2
10. Goldfish Kaseem - For A Bryter Future

Also worth checking out in my opinion were:
Goddess - Ritual Of The Cloven Hoof
Mantra Machine - Echoes Forest
The Oblivion Expedition - Intergalactic Gateway To Infinity
Jesus The Snake - Ethereal Waters

Out of the Doom Charts top ten, on my list Elder was at postition 8, I found the new album quite mediocre and missing the things I usually like about them. It felt to me like they made a safe bet.
All Them Witches (14) was also good, but they’ve changed their style so much that it felt like a different band, way folkier, airy and “lighter” so to speak. I liked the weight on previous recordings.
With Monolord (16) I didn’t get a promo, so I didn’t have time to listen to it too much before hand. After few listens it felt kinda like Elder, familiar in sound and excecution, but missing some of the “essence” I usually like about them.
Robot God (40+) was well above my lists mid-tier, but obviously outside the top 25 submitted, but it felt quite a bit lighter than their previous “Time Capsule Chronicles”. Same goes for Restless Spirit (40+), while Gozu (40) failed to impress me in anyway and felt like a generic metal band with sprinklea of stoner.
Sönus was below my mid-tier (50+) with their southern boogie rock, Goddess was at (11), The Quill at (28) doing what they do but with less power (my notes said “basic Quill rock”) and Skull Servant just behind Gozu (~40).

Many of those bands felt very generic and familiar to me, so I gravitated to sounds and vibes that were not so disctinctly “this band” or “that band”.

Again, I came across many amazing new bands’ music, but it seems I’ve heard and forgotten most or all of them at least once already, so I can’t be arsed to figure out which of them are actually new.

The new Yawning Balch took me by surprise, it’s a collaboration with Yawning Man and Bob Balch (Fu Manchu guitarist) I didn’t know was coming, then I sort of mixed it up with Yawning Man in my mind… it took me a long time to realize what was bugging me.

Few special shoutouts to the bands I found quite interesting and enjoyable, but which were left out of this list due to various reasons (such as it came out very late in the month, or it came out last month when I missed it, only found on streaming platforms and thus failed to listen to it more as most of my promos are local files). These bands related albums are also listed at the bottom of the post, so here goes:
Warp Transmission, Jesus The Snake, Upupayāma, Fucked Up, Thrownness and Buio Dentro! y’all got submitted to the Doom Charts tho!

I managed to finish “Instrumental Forever: The Story of Karma to Burn” book, which was great, but kind of clunky to read. I had an pre-release ebook of it, so don’t take this as my review, so even the formatting was clunky. I enjoyed it as source of information more than anything, like it had slipped me that Will Mecum had died in 2022 for one.

Anyway, here we go!

++Last month I mostly listened to++ version 2026.05:

1. Liquify
2. Blke
3. The Dead At Sea
4. El Altar Del Holocausto
5. Maliciouz
6. Elder
7. Goldfish Kaseem
8. Goddess
9. Mantra Machine
10. The Oblivion Expedition
11. Yawning Balch
12. Lair of the Minotaur
13. Dust Giant
14. Saimaa
15. We Stood Like Kings

++By playtime (h:mm:ss)++:

1. Yawning Balch 7:28:14
2. Liquify 5:46:57
3. Elder 4:20:58
4. Maliciouz 4:17:12
5. El Altar Del Holocausto 4:12:48
6. The Oblivion Expedition 4:03:10

Track obsession: Yawning Balch - Pyramid of Djoser

Bubbling under: All Them Witches, Karma to Burn, Bleeth, Lobo is Mute, Monolord, Old Year, Solar Mantra, Soundgarden, Taxology, Conan, Fucked Up, Thrownness

1001 project bands of note: The Who, Johnny Cash, ZZ Top, Fela Kuti & Ginger Baker

Total artists in rotation: 217

++Relevant albums++:
Liquify - Voyage to the Outer Worlds (2026)
The Dead At Sea - III (2026)
Blke - BLKE (2026)
El Altar Del Holocausto - Ecos (2026)
Maliciouz - Sympathypnotic Intercession (2026)
Elder - Through Zero (2026)
Goldfish Kaseem - For A Bryter Future (2026)
Goddess - Ritual of The Cloven Hoof (2026)
Mantra Machine - Echoes Forest (2026)
The Oblivion Expedition - Intergalactic Gateway To Infinity (2026)
Lair of the Minotaur - I Hail I (2026)
Yawning Balch - Volume Four (2026)
Dust Giant - Dust Giant (2026)
Saimaa - Matka mielen ytimeen, vol. 2 (2026)
We Stood Like Kings - Pinocchio (2026)
Bleeth - Lázara (2026)
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (1973)
Old Year - No Dissent (2025)
Solar Mantra - State Of Joyful Lightness (2026)
Soundgarden - Louder Than Love (1989)
Taxology - A Deep Dive In The Colourful And Mysterious Garden Of Mr. Taxology (2026)
Conan - D.I.Y Series 2 (2026)
All Them Witches - House Of Mirrors (2026)
Fucked Up - Monkey Meets the Dragon (2026)
Thrownness - Marrow Part II: A Fire Through The Ether (2026)
Warp Transmission - Excess Currents (2026)
Jesus The Snake - Ethereal Waters (2026)
Upupayāma - Honesty Flowers (2026)
Buio Dentro - Aurora (2026)

Also! Don’t forget to check out Doom Charts Peroration for April 2026, or the Doom Charts for May that are released coming friday!

Finally, here is the link to playlist with a one track from each[*] of the Top 10 artist above (sort by 'date added' if applicable): http://dy.fi/iio (behind the short url are links to mostly identical playlists in Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, Spotify, and finally Soundiiz, last of which you can use to transfer the playlist to your chosen platform).

[*] with the exception of The Oblivion Expedition and Maliciouz (on some platforms) whom are replaced with a Yawning Balch track.

Anyway, I saw a post in the Jussi Mäntysaari Substack regarding this and immediately found the Spotify data annoying, just like their “year in music” ones previously.
++So I’m doing it better++, or the way I like it more anyway. First of all it’s called Listening since it has everything from local files, streams, CDs, vinyl listens from last 10 or so years and so forth (se below for more info) in it. Secondly, I’ve added numbers and other shit that I find more interesting.

Links to few playlists at the end.

Listening/22-ish

++First day on Last.fm++
15.2.2005, 17:49 (before this is 119 pages with "unknown date", that’s almost 6000 tracks)

++Total songs listened to++
176,854

++First listened song++ (with a date)
Nekromantix - I'm a ShockStar

++Top most listened tracks++ (unknown date, pre-15.2.2005)
Penance - Born To Suffer
Reverend Bizarre - Aleister
Warhorse - Doom's Bride

++Most listened Artists++
Clutch (1,165 times)

++Most listened Albums++
Bongripper - Terminal (312)
Baby Woodrose - Love Comes Down (264)
Golden Void - Golden Void (252)

++Few related playlists++ @ Qobuz (use Soundiiz to export them to your platform):
Shrike's Top Tracks (2004 - 2026)
My annual Top 10 Albums 2005 - 2024 (it’s going to be updated)
Shrike's Best Albums of 2025 - Top 25
My on going This Year I’ve Mostly Listened playlist for 2026

More nerd shit: I’ve been using a web scrobbler extension for a very long time, all kinds of apps, plugins and scripts to send the data automatically, but needed to use the likes of Universal Scrobbler, Open Scrobbler, Vinyl Scrobbler and when it still worked the Discogs app, to send the data.

*I dislike the Spotify platform. Their business model and their owners dubious practices. I went through Tidal, Deezer, the old Google Music and ended up with Qobuz. They are a Hi-Res focused streaming service which pays the best compensation for artists (at the time of writing) and they are European company, French to be exact, which I find nice, as more money ends up in the EU economy.

Also, regarding the numbers and their exactness: There was a time around the 2010’s when I didn’t record my listens all that much; I had a small child, I played a lot of DJ gigs, mainly listened to CDs in-car, so I didn’t really listen to music at home that much which is all missing from said stats.
I think back then I imported a lot of pre-2004 listening data from my WinAmp to Audioscrobbler/Last.fm and this might be where the dateless plays are from, but am not sure if this was the case.

This album is not yet available in streaming platforms outside Bandcamp.
Bandcamp - Facebook

I’d describe The Dead At Sea’s new album “III” with words like ambient, psychedelic and post-rock and whatever else but first and foremost it is very pretty. These Birminghamians are definately doing something right and I love them for it.

This album is not yet available in streaming platforms outside Bandcamp.
Bandcamp - Facebook

Washington based Liquify is a one man projectand the latest album “Voyage to the Outer Worlds” is also very pretty. I would also call the music psychedelic rock, but it has a bit more teeth and attitude leaning into the doomier side of things.

album-link / Liquify - Voyage to the Outer Worlds
Bandcamp - Instagram

There is plenty of great releases coming up, like the albums from Blke, Elder, Yawning Balch and Goddess towards the end of the month. Until then 🫡

I’m reading “Instrumental Forever: The Story of Karma to Burn” by Justin Johnson, which obviously has had an impact and thusly K2B is on the top spot. I hihgly recommend you check out their self titled album, specificly the 2012 version that’s also know as “Karma To Burn: Slight Reprise", which is the remastered debut album which they’ve deleted the vocals from. The american branch of Roadrunner records forced them to find a singer and refused to release if before they have one, even if they’d been playing, released an 4 track EP few as suchyears before and most importantly making a name as an instrumental band.

First friday of the month came real fast, so Doom Charts for April is already out, be sure to check out what the community listened and how it compares to my listens. As always, my recommendation to said list was wholly comprised of new releases, thus all of the older stuff I listened are obviously missing there.

Without further ado, ++last month I mostly listened to.++..

1. Karma to Burn
2. We Stood Like Kings
3. Tons
4. Troy the Band
5. Ghost Funk Orchestra
6. Phantom Logic
7. Slomosa
8. Bismut
9. 🜍 (a.k.a. Sulfur)
10. Sunn O)))
11. Napalm Death
12. Occult Hand Order
13. Slomatics
14. Crippled Black Phoenix
15. Ten East/SoftSun

++By playtime (h:mm:ss):++

1. Sunn O)))
2. Phantom Logic
3. Tons
4. 🜍
5. We Stood Like Kings
6. Karma to Burn
7. Bismut
8. Vestjysk Ørken

Track obsession: Phantom Logic - Glyphwave

Bubbling under: Unearthly Rites, Demonologists with Vainoras, Krypta, Sewer Altar, The Neurophonic Temple, The Prestige, Elastic Fono Band, Poly-Math, Black Rainbows, Miserably Ever After, Stepmother, OutKast, The United States of America, The Damned, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, Guided by Voices

Total artists in rotation: 218

++Relevant albums++:
Karma to Burn - Wild Wonderful Purgatory (1999)
We Stood Like Kings - Pinocchio (2026)
Tons - Stoned Villains (2026)
Phantom Logic - Salton Dust (2026)
Slomosa - Live in Bergen (2026)
Bismut - Matsutake (2026)
🜍 - ☉ (a.k.a. Sulfur - Sun/Gold, 2026)
Sunn O))) - Sunn o))) (2026)
Occult Hand Order - Meaningless Monuments (2026)
Troy the Band - (des) (2026)
Crippled Black Phoenix - Sceaduhelm (2026)
Ten East/SoftSun - Turned To Stone: Chapter 10 (2026)
Napalm Death - Scum (1987)
Napalm Death - From Enslavement to Obliteration (1988)
Unearthly Rites - Tortural Symphony of the Flesh (2026)
The Neurophonic Temple - Transgressive Sonic Stimuli (2026)
Vestjysk Ørken - LSDREI (2026)

A track from each Top 10 artist can be found from this playlist (sort by 'date added' if applicable): ++**http://dy.fi/iio++**
(behind the short url are playlists on Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, Spotify, and Soundiiz which you can use to transfer the playlist to your chosen platform).

First one is a new album by drone gods Sunn O))), who haven't released a new studio album in over 6 years. If you're reading this, I imagine you know who these guys are and what they sound like, but if not, you're in for a treat/surprise. Expect long droney riffs and single notes stretched eternal and harsh guitar tones.

album-link Sunn O))) - Sunn O)))
Bandcamp - homepage - Musicbrainz

Hungarian collective called Psychedelic Source Records keeps on releasing amazing psychedelic music and "sulfur symbol" is no exception. The name of the band and album really are both simply just a single symbol.

Bandcamp link to sulfur - sun album
They have no social media presence - Musicbrainz

Split album by Ten East & SoftSun called Turned To Stone Chapter 10, is nice combination of very floaty pop/rock that I’m calling dream-stoner here. They have the Yawning Man-ish airy vibe and some of the feels I sometimes get from showgaze and dreampop music.

SoftSun: Bandcamp - Facebook - Musicbrainz
Ten East: Bandcamp - Facebook - Musicbrainz

And finally noise/psychedelic rock group Gnod’s latest release Chronicles of Gnowt (Vol 1). Some of their earlier music had a lot more harshness, compared to this one, but it’s still quite aggressive as far as psychedelic rock music goes.

album.link/Gnod-ChroniclesOfGnowtVol1
Bandcamp - Musicbrainz

Cool “new bands that made an impact” were Prophets of Thwaites and From Yuggoth, they were probably my most frequently started releases (former only 2 song, latter 4 song EP’s), but also Lesotho’s instrumental post-rock was highly appreciated.
The Heads came out with new material, which was nice a surprise, as did Sörnäinen, who are a very special group indeed (Svart’s artist page in Finnish, use translator if need be).

I also had the privilege of hearing a rough mix of one new Bong II track, which was already quite ready in my opinion and awesome, of course. Here is a interview with Narc magazine with them.

Remember to check out the March Doom Charts this coming friday!
I probably wont be making a separate post about those anymore.

++Top most listened artists were++:

1. The Heads
2. Desert Collider
3. Prophets of Thwaites
4. Lesotho
5. Gjenferd
6. Red Sun Atacama
7. From Yuggoth
8. Devil Electric
9. Sörnäinen
10. Black Lung
11. Yeast Machine
12. Witchcraft
13. Harvey Rushmore & the Octopus
14. Temptress
15. Uncle Leaf

++By playtime (h:mm:ss)++:

Prophets of Thwaites 2:57:07
From Yuggoth 2:47:59
Desert Collider 2:13:00
Uncle Leaf 2:07:25
Neurosis 2:07:00
Red Sun Atacama 2:01:30

Track obsession: Prophets of Thwaites - A Deadlock
Bubbling under: Desert Storm, Ice T, Radiohead, The Black Keys, Kal-el, Neurosis, The Mountain King, Wolfbastard, The Verve, Abrams, Dhyana, Dirty Dwarfs
Total artists in rotation: 289

Relevant albums:
The Heads - Yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell (2026)
Desert Collider - Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity (2026)
Prophets of Thwaites - Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat EP (2026)
Lesotho - A Flashing on Plain Glass (2026)
Gjenferd - Black Smoke Rising (2026)
Red Sun Atacama - Summerchild (2026)
From Yuggoth - And ever since my paths were crooked and forsaken (2026)
Devil Electric - Tahlia (2026)
Sörnäinen - En Ehkä Haluaa Tietää (2026)
Black Lung - Forever Beyond (2026)
V/A - Brown Acid: The Twenty Second Trip (2026)
Yeast Machine - Bad Milk (2026)
Witchcraft - A Sinner's Child (2026)
Harvey Rushmore & the Octopus - Mindsuckers (2026)
Temptress - Hear (2026)
Uncle Leaf - Fear The Only Mother (2026)
The Black Keys - Brothers (2010)
Desert Storm - Buried Under The Weight Of Reason (2026)
Kal-el - Astral Voyager Vol. 2 (2026)
Ice T - O.G. Original Gangster (1991)
Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)
Neurosis - An Undying Love for a Burning World (2026)
The Mountain King - Pike Dreams (2026)
Wolfbastard - Satanic Scum Punks (2026)
Dhyana - Amata (2026)
Dirty Dwarfs - Dirty Dwarfs (2026)

A track from each Top 10 artist can be found from this playlist (sort by 'date added' if applicable): ++**http://dy.fi/iio++**
(behind the short url are playlists on Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, Spotify, and on Soundiiz which you can use to transfer it to your chosen platform).

Lastly, subscribe below, it really helps my motivation to keep these coming.
Also comment on the posts here or at Mastodon, let me know if there’s something I can do better or what ever else you have to say. Ever since I moved away from Facebook all interaction has been minimal (FB is an abysmal platform for anything these days (I lost my messaging privileges just for giving my number to a friend so they could reach me outside of FB. Ironically, they used WhatsApp to do it), so that’s not saying much), which is sort of discouraging.

First a brand new acquaintance, a band called Lesotho, whom released A Flashing On Plain Glass, which I would call an EP even with it’s 28 minutes of duration. They play instrumental post-rock with atmospheric metal stylings, which I’ve enjoyed quite a bit.

album.link/Lesotho - A Flashing On Plain Glass
bandcamp.com - Linktree - Musicbrainz

Another new acquaintance called Prophets of Thwaites, whom I’d describe as psychedelic doomgaze band, whom released Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat EP. I’d highly recommend taking a listen to the older stuff as well, since this one has only two songs.

album.link/Prophets Of Thwaites - Vulnerant Omnes Ultima Necat
bandcamp.com - Instagram - Musicbrainz

And a third newcomer to my sphere of knowledge, is called Desert Collider and their enthusiastically named Generation Ship: Endless Drift through Infinity -album. They could be described as playing heavy psych stoner rock, which is another mouthful of an genre label.

https://album.link/DesertCollider - Generation Ship: Endless Drift Through Infinity
bandcamp.com - Facebook - Musicbrainz

Finally as a last minute bonus, take a listen to Yourprettyplaceisgoingtohell by The Heads. It just came out today on 20.3.2026 to almost everyones surprise, as they quit some years ago and this is new material. It's punk-ish and garage-y, aggressively bluesy, fuzzed out and drugged up rock music with gnashing teeth that want to gnaw on your ears. Nice!

I don’t know why I always get so excited over these albums, but I do! They’re full of forgotten gems and I can’t get enough of these tracks. Quite frankly I’m still dreaming about buying the Trips 1-20 vinyl compilation box set, even tho I’m quite aware my record shelves are full enough without any additions as it is.

Aaaanyway! Here’s what RidingEasy has to say about this one:
“Just as you were getting your head straight coming off the 21st Trip… Brown Acid dose #22 drops, continuing to fry your mind in a revolving trap-door Twilight Zone alternate world of early hard rock… populated by real life characters so far out they can look like a cheesy wedding band but sound like Blue Cheer! Uncanny! This music comes at you from many angles. Teens in a garage colliding with booze, drugs and girls for the first time, lounge lizard hustlers with snazzy stage clothes and fuzz boxes… gnarly backwoods troublemakers meet blow dried glam rock wannabes here, seamlessly clobbering your head with sound rather than each other! An electric post-psychedelic bar brawl for your mind awaits, unfasten your seat belt, crank it up and fly!”

Get your physical copies here (or indeed via Bandcamp), if so inclined.

As a sidenote, for streaming I use Qobuz and while some releases are not there immediately, on a rare occasion never, I love that you can browse record labels (in addition to them actually paying proper compensation to artists AND HiRes quality music if available)! At Spotify the Brown Acid compilations are nearly impossible to find amidst all the other “various artists” releases.

Oh, and the cover is awesome as always!

A lot of my submissions ended up on that list, but quite a few didn’t make it.
As is in the charts I also liked Belzebong, Earth Tongue, Weedpecker, Suplecs, Riastrad and Oreyeon.

But of the missing ones I’d like to name few:
Glen - It Was a Bright Cold Day in April
Bruecken - Years That Answer
Magnify The Sound - Searching for a Quiet Place
Gnarled - Fog Dweller EP
previous were in my Top 10, plus there four:
Dimscûa - Dust Eater
Vorheüm - Anthropogenic Global Disaster
Thistle Sifter - Forever The Optimist
Chained To The Bottom Of The Ocean - Let Us Not Speak of Them But Look and Pass On

Each one of them is worth the listen, there’s sludge, blackened kraut, ambient folk and all sorts.
Until next week 🫡

First one is a psychedelic noise rock band Snuff Rider from Tampere, Finland. They’ve got some garage and krautrock vibes, but they’re best experienced live. Some of the guys also play in Warp Transmission, which is also worth a listen for any fan of psych/space rock.
A disclaimer is in order tho; I know several of the musicians and some of them I call friends.

Snuff Rider @ bandcamp.com
They have no social media presence - Musicbrainz

Psychedelic source records is a Hungarian psychedelic rock collective, they record improvised jam sessions which I enjoy quite a lot. Some of them sound quite planned to me, which I’m not saying as a bad thing nor am I saying they fake it or whatever. I’m saying it’s very good.
This one is called Prayer for a Divine Flood, it was recorded in late 2025 and it’s already coming out on vinyl as well.

Psychedelic Source Records @ bandcamp.com
They also have no social media presence - Musicbrainz

The German stoner and doom band From Yuggoth grabbed my attention immediately, just because of the Cthulhu references. I was pleasently surprised when they delivered proper riffage and crushing soundscapes to accompany their message of cosmic destruction.

From Yuggoth @ bandcamp.com
Facebook - Instagram - Musicbrainz

One of the cool new finds was Magnify the Sound’s album Searching for a quiet place, which I found very pleasing to listen. Lovely!
Another new one was Berlin based Kiwi duo Earth Tongue and their album Dungeon Vision, which gives me Ty Segall/Fuzz crossed with King Gizz vibes. Nice!

Anyway, here’s the list and take a listen to the playlists at the end, to hear for yourself.

Top most listened artists:

1. Belzebong
2. Earth Tongue
3. Glen
4. Weedpecker
5. Riastrad
6. Thistle Sifter
7. Bruecken
8. Oreyeon
9. Blackwater Holylight
10. Zahn

By playtime (h:mm:ss):

1. Belzebong 6:45:13
2. Weedpecker 4:54:04
3. Riastrad 2:59:56
4. Thistle Sifter 2:49:53
5. Earth Tongue 2:31:51
6. Oreyeon 2:26:34
7. Dimscûa 2:26:31
8. Gnarled 2:25:12

Track obsession: Belzebong - Bong & Chain
Bubbling under: Dimscûa, Kröwnn, Electric Hydra, Grave Disgrace, Hermano, Magnify the Sound, Blunt Knife Castration, Rollerball, Suplecs, Gnarled
Total artists in rotation: 232

Relevant albums:
Belzebong - The End Is High (2026)
Weedpecker - V (2026)
Earth Tongue - Dungeon Vision (2026)
Magnify the Sound - Searching for a quiet place (2026)
Glen - It Was A Bright Cold Day In April (2026)
Riastrad - Riastrad (2026)
Thistle Sifter - Forever The Optimist (2026)
Bruecken - years that answer (2026)
Oreyeon - The Grotesque Within (2026)
Blackwater Holylight - Not Here Not Gone (2026)
Zahn - Purpur (2026)
Hermano - Clisson, France (2026)
Dimscûa - Dust Eater (2026)
Grave Disgrace - Helldiver (2026)
Kröwnn - Santa Somnia (2026)
Electric Hydra - From the Fallen (2026)
Blunt Knife Castration - Blood & Oil (2026)
Rollerball - Submarine (2009, re-release)
Suplecs - Hymns Under a Blood Moon Sky (2026)
Gnarled - Fog Dweller EP (2026)

Glen’s album It Was A Bright Cold Day In April (album.link) was not available on all platforms, thus I’ve linked it here.

Tracks from each artist can be found in these playlists (sort by 'date added' if applicable): http://dy.fi/iio (behind the short url are playlists on Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, Spotify and Soundiiz which you can use to transfer to other platoforms).

First one is a instrumental post-rock band Bruecken and their album Years That Answer. They paint a beautiful atmosphere with their post-rock vibes, while they do have some vocals on the record, I feel like it is more flavour and think of them as an instrumental band.

https://album.link/Bruecken-YearsThatAnswer
++brueckenband.de++ - Facebook - Musicbrainz

Second release is by Magnify The Sound from Norway and it’s called Searching For A Quiet Place. The musicians have a wide array of groups in their past, including The 3rd & The Mortal and a jazz drummer/PhD musicologist.
The album is rich with folk ambience, very pretty but also forlorn feelings, gorgeous instrumentation and vocals to suit.

https://album.link/MagnifyTheSound-SearchingQuiet
Youtube - Facebook - Musicbrainz

Third album is by Weedpecker with their latest and unsurprisingly named fifth album V. They’re a Polish heavy psych/stoner rock band that have been around for quite some time. This new one is quite beautiful, while it can be severely heavy as well, as they have the psychedelic vibe as well as the modern doomy heaviness that is considered “stoner metal/doom” today.
For some reason I keep thinking of them as an instrumental group, while I know they have some vocals, so I guess their music is so jam oriented that I tend to forget. Or something.

https://album.link/weedpecker-v
Facebook -Musicbrainz

My contribution was just Mr. Dibbs Brown Acid “The Essential Mix”, which I found very good and enjoyable, but it didn’t really fit into the main list either.

Other interesting find we’re Finnish bands Marianas Rest and Sweatmaster, former from the area we lovingly called “Karhulan Mafia“ within the Helsinki stoner community. So many stonerish/doomy/sludgey bands came out from the Kymenlaakso area, especially Karhula area back in the day. Marianas Rest is more on the death side of things tho.
While Sweatmaster is an old garage/punk rock outfit that came out of about 15 years of hibernation with a buzz. I managed to catch the band live, with Xysma of all bands, before they announced anything in a private party in Turku. Still in fine form, while not 100% my stuff they’re a wonderful live band!

It also had few artists that stayed in my rotation, namely Tarlung and Skogskult.
Anyway, go look at the list and listen to the music therein!

“The following are professions of love and adoration by Doom Charts Contributors for albums they could not stop spinning. Each month, the Doom Charts critics submit their picks for the best new doom, sludge, metal, stoner, psychedelic and other sorts of heavy rock and metal albums. The results are compiled and tabulated into the chart which is published on the First Friday of the new month. However, sometimes a love is so great, but for whatever reason the album unfortunately did not make the published Doom Charts Edition or because there were so many contributors in love with that one album, that multiple blurbs were written, and only the one got published… Well, you can peruse that love here…”

• Doom Charts Perorations for December and January is here.

Shrike’s Listens is now at Writizzy

Annoyingly, I just launched the Substack version just few months ago, around the new years 2025-26, but managed to miss the talk about their dubious business practices.
I’ve been moving all my socials to Finnish or European based platforms, so why not do the same with this one before I’m elbow deep in it.

What’s next?

I’ll be migrating all of my older posts and phasing out the old “blog”.
Then it’s full on back to the business of listening and suggesting new music.

It has quite a few releases I had also picked up as my favourites, here’s few from my top picks Giant, Lord Elephant, Tarlung, Wild Fuzz Trip, Undulathund, Pelican and Gavran to name few.

But the list I submitted had releases that aren’t on the chart at all, few of them because they’re older releases and I found about them later, some of them might be outside the scope of the other people participating and some just obscure enough that nobody picked them up.

Here’s few I think should to be mentioned:
Gylt - In 1,000 Agonies, I Exist (very aggro punk/noise rock)
In A House Of Heartbeats - Divination Of Dreams (instrumental doomish post-rock)
Nothing3000 - Philosophy Of Infinity (instrumental stoner post-rock)
Opal Ashes - *Opal Ashes* (rocking alt-pop)
Karambolage - Skælmsk (instrumental stoner rock with post-rock vibes)
Summer Of Hate - Blood & Honey (emo alt-rock shoegaze with light post-punk vibes)
Lychgate - Precipice (2025.12 release, darkener prog death metal)
Mindbloom - Bocal Session (Live at Le Bocal) (2025.12 release, massive post-rock sound with stoner vibes)
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy - Heavy (2025.11 release, they’re all over the place, try ‘em!)

And finally Mr. Dibbs Brown Acid “The Essential Mix”, which will probably pop up in the charts peroration post later this month.

As per usual there is lots of new releases, some bands previously unknown to me, some old favourites and some from my 1001 Albums -project.

++2026.01 What I listened to list++

1. GYLT
2. Lord Elephant
3. Dust Giant
4. Giant
5. In A House Of Heartbeats
6. Tarlung
7. Sleaford Mods
8. The Who
9. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy
10. Heilung
11. Lychgate
12. Old Year
13. Gavran
14. Wild Fuzz Trip
15. Mindbloom

By playtime (h:mm:ss):

1. Lord Elephant 4:31:24
2. Giant 4:01:36
3. Gavran 3:58:08
4. Dhyana 3:48:32
5. Heilung 2:34:10
6. Wild Fuzz Trip 2:30:13

Track obsession: Lord Elephant - Astral Crypt
Bubbling under: Moby, Nothing3000, Dhyana, DJ Shadow, Thin Lizzy
Total artists in rotation: 199

Relevant albums:
GYLT - In 1,000 Agonies, I Exist (2026)
Giant - Beneath The Mountains (2026)
Lord Elephant - Ultra Soul (2026)
In A House Of Heartbeats - Divination Of Dreams (2026)
Tarlung - Axis Mundi (2026)
Dust Giant - Static in the Blood (2026)
Sleaford Mods - The Demise of Planet X (2026)
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy - Heavy (2026)
Lychgate - Precipice (2025)
Old Year - No Dissent (2025)
Gavran - The One Who Propels (2026)
Wild Fuzz Trip - Fuzz Transmissions (2026)
Mindbloom - Bocal Session (Live at Le Bocal) (2026)
Nothing3000 - Philosophy of Infinity (2026)

Tracks from each of my top 10 artist can be found in these playlists (sort by ‘date added’ if applicable): http://dy.fi/iio (has playlists to Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, Spotify + Soundiiz to transfer to your preferred platform).

Any suggestions or questions are highly appreciated.
Based on data is from my Last.fm.

While I like Bandcamp in principle, they’ve been going down a smelly road ever since 2022’s whole Epic Games/Songtradr fiasco. It was kind of obvious there would be collateral damage, they got so much PR for their very public policy decision against AI content. They decided to go very hard line with this policy, as is these times the only way to show you mean business (I find this sad).
I’ve been looking for BC alternatives, but only recently found Mirlo, which I feel would be good platform to replace it. I’m thinking of moving my stuff over.

Anyway!
A jam band The Moondig had their Bandcamp account summarily deleted for using AI-assisted artwork on their releases. They’d already released about 60 albums of jam based music, sessions which they’d record live about weekly and then release without much edits or studio polish.

When they contacted Bandcamp about the account they received this reply:
“Hi there,

You are free to create a new account that contains only your original work, without the substantial use of AI tooling, but we are not able to restore the previous account.

All the best,
Bandcamp”

So their account was terminated and when they requested reinstatement, Bandcamp’s response was: “You can create a new profile. We don’t have a backup.”

That’s quite an over-reaction in my opinion, not just losing all of their music, but also the community they’d been building for years. This is not what should’ve happened, in my opinion, especially since they had not defined any rules what that ment. I mean, DAW’s have a lot of AI tools readily available or pre-installed and Photoshop has AI tools built-in by default, even Audacity has AI tools available fer gnadssakes!

link to The Moondig's FB post

I’ve never seen nor heard of remixes of these compilations, but I was intrigued and boy was I rewarded. It’s grooves and funk and beats and all the good stuff, with loads of spoken word sound bites and obviously really good rock music. But with a modern beat (and twist) on it all.

To quote the offender themselves, Mr Dibbs: “When I was approached by RidingEasy Records about this project, I’m not sure they understood exactly what they’d done. They turned over Twenty-One volumes and over three hundred files of post hippie, aggressive, apocalyptic and psychedelic rock, funk metal and said, “do your thing.” What was supposed to be a quick flip turned into a 7-month project. I laughed, I cried, I broke shit and put it all back together again. And I mean that, literally and figuratively. Because, y’all, halfway through this labor of funk, my studio flooded. I was then relocated, that’s including 15k records, demo’ed, remodelled, rebuilt and moved back. Not once did I stop working. This ain’t no micro dose, this is two tabs, double dipped. So this time, take the brown acid.”

It’s pretty good too! Highly recommended listening.

• It’s an ongoing series of curated compilation albums released by RidingEasy Records and Permanent Records. The series gathers rare singles from obscure, often short-lived bands that never achieved mainstream success or released full-length albums and focuses on “archival” rock and roll, specifically documenting the underground heavy psychedelic, hard rock, and proto-metal scenes of the late 1960s and 1970s.

The series home page, and the physical releases obviously, contain a lot more information about each release and about the bands/songs on it.

Last year saw the release of “Brown Acid: The Twenty-First Trip (Heavy Rock From The Underground Comedown)”, and that to me is amazing. That’s 21 compilation albums of very obscure, very good rock music, that only handful of people have probably heard before. I’ve listened to them all (I think) and many a time have I considered buying the combined collections (Brown Acid All 20 Trips vinyl LP combo is about $300 plus postages), but I’m scared. And I have no room.