The Best Stoner Metal Album - Metal Storm Awards 2025

Bask - The Turning

'Heavy Americana' has been Bask's particular brand pretty much from the outset, but with the recruitment of steel guitarist Jed Willis as a permanent member of their roster, they are even better placed to bring the Appalachians to their psychedelic stoner/post-metal. The Turning is quite a crunching album, with a real heft and attack to its rather intricate riffs that almost borders on sludge territory, but the mix around that metallic foundation is populated by twanging guitars, airy psychedelic textures, delicate post-rock detours, and a number of folk instruments that range from banjo to saloon piano. The Turning is built around an era-spanning, galaxy-crossing concept story, and the coalescence of sounds on the album also feels like multiple worlds are colliding with one another, yet the impact results in something quite wondrous.

Full review

Daevar - Sub Rosa

Not to be mistaken for the band SubRosa, Germany's Daevar trio has been quickly building up momentum, releasing one album every year since their formation. Initially sounding a bit too similar to bands like Windhand and *cough* SubRosa, Sub Rosa has Daevar working more and more towards finding a footing in a more personal sound, with a lot of the heavy lifting coming from how the vocal hooks make it such an earworm and how it's spiced up with a bit of grunge and goth flair.

Dahuz - Cineres Mundi

To begin with, Cineres Mundi sounds like many other stoner doom metal albums: thick, lumbering and overrunning with fuzz. However, Dahuz slowly reveal themselves across their debut full-length album to offer far more than might initially be expected. First, a current of melancholia flows through the album in a manner akin to Spaceslug's signature sound, and then later on the stoner doom is post-metallized in remarkable fashion, adding a whole breadth of tonality and dynamics to that first taste of stodgy fuzz.

Full review

Dhyana - Mu

Does it count as "stoner" if your preferred mind-altering pursuit is the meditational teachings of Bodhidharma?  Well, it sort of does if you're rocking fuzz this impenetrable and drums this tinny; the building blocks of a bongalicious blowout are all here.  Dhyana really do have more on their minds, though, because Mu is so stoned it's droned: the compositions are repetitive, prolonged, and simple, with melodies and chord progressions that are usually minimal and recursive, and the fact that it's instrumental helps.  This is stoner stretched to the brink of drone doom, just pure fuzz and crunch and hypnotic beats.  Whether you're coming here from a holy mountain or a Holy Mountain, this album's a real trip, man.

Full review

Howling Giant - Crucible & Ruin

After their flurry of activity around the turn of the decade, things have been rather quite on the King Buffalo front, but Howling Giant go a long way to filling the void with vocal harmonies that scratch a very similar itch. Howling Giant are somewhat heavier than that band, however, with a real muscular tone to the numerous infectious riffs across Crucible & Ruin, which are accompanied by delightful melodic guitar melodies thrown around with abandon. The growth of the band from a trio to a quartet with a second guitarist in the action is a big success for the group, as the songs here sound so much fuller and deeper than those on previous album Glass Future, and this plays a large role in Howling Giant taking a big leap forward as a group on their third full album.

Håndgemeng - Satanic Panic Attack

Håndgemeng turned plenty of heads with a cover art that displayed plenty of intra-band intimacy, but beyond the corpse paint and the 80s Satanic hysteria-inspired lyricism, Satanic Panic Attack draws attention for its rich mixture of lush psychedelia and radio-cranking rock. The influence of fellow Norwegians Kvelertak can be keenly felt in the album's more direct and driven heavy rockers, which sit with easy alongside the more languid and melodic cuts in the tracklist. The band claim to have sold their souls; this album is more than good enough to warrant the stardom that such shenanigans should ensure.

Full review

Khan - That Fair And Warlike Form // Return To Dust

Having never written a 10-minute song before their previous album Creatures, it was by no means an obvious evolution for Khan to veer away from song-oriented writing towards long-form jams such as this, and yet the two 23-minute tracks that comprise That Fair And Warlike Form // Return To Dust sound as if created by experienced professionals. The mellow psychedelic aura of this album will feel somewhat familiar to fans of the likes of Elder, yet the consistently melancholic tint adds a real pathos and gravitas that keeps these tracks reliably compelling throughout their various ebbs and flows, and when each of them enters their climactic groove and swells to gargantuan proportions, you will be completely swept off your feet.

Full review

Margarita Witch Cult - Strung Out In Hell

Sometimes you want your stoner metal to have clear ties to old-timey psych rock or traditional heavy metal, and that kind of retro melodic edge is exactly what Margarita Witch Cult are really good at, but they've updated it to fit alongside more contemporary sludge-infused stoner metal. Some fuzz a la Kylesa or Church Of Misery, the occasional gruffer but still reverb-laden vocals like a mix of Electric Wizard and Conan, but with just enough grooves to hearken back to more straight-forward times for metal. Split in the middle by a Billy Idol cover, Strung Out In Hell has riffs and choruses for days and enough variation between the songs to make each of them feel like they need a different set of namedrops to describe.

Nightstalker - Return From The Point Of No Return

Nightstalker, aka the forefathers of the Greek stoner scene, return from the point of no return, six years after Great Hallucinations. The heavy riffs, the electric atmosphere, and the unmistakable groove are all present in a familiar way, but this album feels somewhat darker and more autobiographical than others, especially if someone listens to the title track on which vocalist Argy gives everything he’s got. Despite being already 35 years in the business, Nightstalker show no intention of retiring. And, with albums like Return From The Point Of No Return, why would they?

Spectral Sorcery - Hyperspace Odyssey

It is the mark of a fearless band to open their debut album with a 21-minute song; thankfully, Spectral Sorcery have the talent to match their ambition. Inspired by stoner doom and space rock, Hyperspace Odyssey brings together psychedelia, sci-fi, prog, and good old fashioned heavy riffs, with a rich emotional core underpinning everything. Dense fuzzy riffs are accentuated by melancholic guitar leads, spellbinding solos are countered by evocative clean singing, and by the end, Spectral Sorcery will have taken you on a journey of heart and mind across the cosmos.