Band:	Elephant Tree
Album:	Habits
Style:	Doom metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	April 2020

01. Wake.Repeat (Intro)
02. Sails
03. Faceless
04. Exit The Soul
05. The Fall Chorus
06. Bird
07. Wasted
08. Broken Nails

Every city in the goddamn world has at least two stoner rock acts, usually some band name involving "weed", "bong", "dope" or "Satan". Not that stoner rock has a monopoly on being an overly saturated genre, but finding stuff that really feels like it sticks with you is relatively rare. Me revisiting this album a couple of months after it came out, should give you an indication that Elephant Tree's habits might be a cut above the rest.

I came into contact with the band because of Habits being their first album to be released through Holy Roar Records, a label that I've been paying more and more attention to after their spotlight at last year's Roadburn Festival. Not all of their stuff is really metal, and not even Elephant Tree, but if this year's Garganjua is any indication of this label's quality in massive psychedelic doom rock/metal, we can expect at least similar level of quality. So from the London scene comes Elephant Tree, a band that really seems to understand how to make their music sound absolutely expansive.

What became instantly memorable for me were the folk rock moments, that take me back to how intertwined the psychedelic and folk scenes were in the 60s, back in the former's infancy. Though something like Hexvessel might also tap into that primordial psychedelic folk sound, Elephant Tree's sound isn't really retro. The moments are mostly concentrated either in their own songs like "The Fall Chorus", but they're sprinkled all throughout several acoustic or generally calmer moments through the record. But most of all they are felt in the soothing vocal harmonies, that take that aforementioned folk rock song, and put a bit of ethereal dream pop into it as well, but each of these still in the context of a stoner rock record, so don't expect that the vocals are all silky and there's no gruff power at any point through them, just that they seem to have more of that soothing quality.

And it isn't just the vocals. Like I mentioned, Habits is a truly expansive record, benefiting from pretty much a perfect production in how crystal clear everything sounds and how well the layers interact with one another. The fuzz is all enveloping, but the very subtle synths make it all so much more spacious. The distortion feels heavy without being crushing, it along with the vocals sounding more akin to some of the fuzzier Smashing Pumpkins moments, and the heartfelt mix of doom and blues also feels close to Pallbearer at times. And if I were to name one of the songs on Habits as emblematic of all these, it would be the closer "Broken Nails", where all of the folky, fuzzy, spacey or bluesy elements all find moments within it to shine.

Habits is one of those albums where the sound just feels lush. That doesn't fall to genre conventions, but still offer satisfying resolutions of those conventions. It doesn't feel like just a stoner rock record, but even as a stoner rock record, it's really damn great.