Ice Dragon - Born A Heavy Morning

Some quality early 70s rock worship. Rather than balls out rocking or Sabbath dooming Ice Dragon go for a slightly more stately Groundhogs/Humble Pie almost prog feel.

Obliterations - s/t

Black Flag/Bl'ast! + 70s Rock stuff. They're doing a decent job of filling in the hole left by Annihilation Time. Obviously it isn't quite as good as AT but they set the bar extremely high. This is only Obliterations debut 7" so they've got the potential to become really mindblowing. For the moment the quality of the rocking is more than sufficient to warrant recommending a listen.

Black Magician - Nature Is The Devil's Church

Black Magician seem to have cast a spell taking doom back to the time when it meant folk with long hair and flares listening to Cathedral. When mushroom freaks like Acrimony would be given column inches in Terrorizer. Y'know, when being into doom meant you were into 70s rock by default.

This sounds like it could have been released by Hellhound Records many moons ago. Or Rise Above for that matter.

The thing that really sets Black Magician apart is their use of the organ. Come on, who the hell doesn't like a good bit of fuzzy 70s organ? Brings to mind things like Jacula and other obscurities.

They're not afraid to break out of the doom crawl tempo either. The end of Four Thieves Vinegar brings the tmepo right up for a head banging march to the end. The organ is going full pelt as well. Doesn't sound much like Deep Purple but it does kind of remind you of the way the organ goes wild on things like Highway Star.

Basically, this is the real deal when it comes to doom. Loads of Black Sabbath and other old-fashioned doom riffage, fuzzy organs, long hair, hammer horror-esque lyrics about medieval england, flares, skulls. The song writing is spot on and so si the production.

It's everything you want in a doom album.

Nick Frater - Throw Money

Some people might look at that name and think I'm engaging in shameless nepotism. You'd be right.

It is very good though. Well produced progressive 70s powerpop sounds. Steely Dan, The Raspberries, Todd Rundgren and all that jazz. Ben Folds Five isn't too far off either. Intricate piano melodies & harmonies to full on bombastic pomposity, fuzzy guitar solos, bits of synth. All good stuff.