Tag Archives: doom metal

Friday Morning Metal – Mountain Witch – Back from the Grave

Enjoy some stoner Hamburger metal! This week it’s Mountain Witch’s Back from the Grave. These guys have been playing old timey doom metal since 2008, with themes of Occultism, Horror, and/or Doooooooom. It’s good to know that doom metal can come from everywhere including Hamburg, Germany. They sound like they could’ve opened for Sabbath in the 70s. Also these guys should not be mixed up with Witch Mountain, who played Mayrmoor festival in Radmond in 2025 and are also a doom metal band. I wonder if they’d ever double bill, that’d be pretty rad. Maybe there are bands called Witch Witch and Mountain Mountain so we could have every combination on the bill.

The song kicks off with big guitars setting the tone. It’s not quite as drony as other doom/stoner metal bands, with a solid chord progression going through the verses. Felt almost like a more ominous Iron Butterfly. Vocals don’t kick in until a minute in, letting you soak up the solid riffs. I also dig that the walking bass is up enough in the mix that you can actually hear it. I thiiink there’s some synth going on in there, but Encyclopaedia Metallum doesn’t mention a synth player in the band. Regardless, it gives a good haunting vibe to the song. Like it should be played in a shlocky horror movie! There’s a solid noodly solo toward the end, to finish em off, can’t go wrong with a closing solo.

There’s not much to the video, aside from the band name and song title, but they did add some pops on the screen to make it look like you’re watching a really old film or something. I kept waiting for the hand to move or something, but no dice. Much like I mentioned earlier, if they had set up the video to look like a horror movie that starts with someone dying, getting buried, then coming back from the grave for vengeance on those horny teenagers, it would’ve been wild. Like I Know What You Did Last Summer of Sixty Nine. Or something.

Friday Morning Metal – Castle Rat – Wizard

Oooh I had not heard of Castle Rat before. But they’re on a mission to expand and defend the realm, so that’s good to support. They’re fantasy doom metal coming straight out of Brooklyn, and this new song Wizard is pretty killer if you’re into those kind of vibes. Definitely feels like something D&D nerds would listen to in 1978. They’re also playing the Clock-Out Lounge in Seattle on September 16th, in case you want to get your doom fix live.

If you’re into doom or sludgy metal, this song is going to kick you right in the solar plexus. There’s a couple shifts within the song, makes it feel like three different movements within 5 minutes, which is kind of fun. Personally, I can dig on slower melodical doomy stuff, but it can get stale for me after a bit, so the shifts are welcome. The vocals are awesome, very haunting and fit into the vibe well. Definitely sounds like she could lead a seance or a cult. In the second shift is when things pick up and we get a really noodly solo, with up close zooms on the fingers and sweeps pickings! Can’t go wrong with that.

The video’s got total 1978 Canon Film vibes to it. Like it could be scenes that were cut from Conan the Destroyer, or one of those Italian Hercules movies starring like Lou Ferrigno or something. It bounces between the band playing and a wizard who looks like the blond dude from Die Hard. He gets in a fight with a bald wizard and things get pretty magical. I don’t want to get into more than that, gotta watch the video to figure out what happens! Very great look with the trippy quasi-green screen stuff going on.

Friday Morning Metal – Cortége – Horizons

Cortége plays, as they describe it, post-western Doom/Drone metal. They’re a now three-piece band what includes big standing bells? Oh, according to the youtube description they’re “tubular bells” and they give a very tubular vibe to their songs. When I hear their music, it has a very moody space western vibe to it. Like if there’s a Cad Bane show, they could score it.

I saw these guys a couple months ago at the Shakedown, and they’re a hell of a lot of fun live. The music kind of looms, and the mix they had live really shook my guts with the ominous vibes coming from their Super Assman stack.

So go put your duster on, hop on your landspeeder, and crank some Cortége!