The Best Stoner Metal Album - Metal Storm Awards 2024

Abrams - Blue City

The style of Abrams has never been an easy one to pin down, and that remains the case on album number five, Blue City. While the sludge elements from their earlier days are largely gone, the fuzzy, psychedelic stoner metal in this new album is tempered with plenty of alt-rock hookiness and accessibility, alongside some flirtations with post-rock and shoegaze in moments. The album is jam-packed with effortlessly catchy and easy-going songs, whether surging forward with gusto or exploiting slower tempos to craft warm soundscapes.

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Horseburner - Voice Of Storms

Horseburner are one of those bands like earlier Mastodon, Baroness, and, more recently, Dvne that walk the tightrope between stoner and sludge metal while also dabbling in prog. Of these acts, their sound is perhaps the closest to stoner metal, and the ventures towards sludge are on the lighter end of the spectrum, as Voice Of Storms places a lot of importance on groove, hooks, melody, and fun guitar licks, with any proggish tendencies not undermining the catchiness and accessibility of the songs. Above anything else, Voice Of Storms is just very fun, with so many memorable riffs and licks and a joyous energy to whatever it sets its mind to.

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Planet Of Zeus - Afterlife

2024 proved to be a great and successful year for the Greek stoner rock scene, with bands such as Khirki, 1000mods, and, of course, Planet Of Zeus each contributing through their stellar releases. The album in question here is Afterlife, the 6th full-length release by Planet Of Zeus. Although the band's style is stoner rock at its core, Southern and hard rock influences are also introduced into their style; what we have here is an intriguing concoction of styles inspired by bands such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers Band, AC/DC, Queens Of The Stone Age, and Clutch. If you're in the mood for some '90s-style stoner with a touch of the old Southern rock blues and some classic '70s hard rock thrown in, all inspired by those bands above, then this will surely suit your needs. There's no shortage of groovy riff melodies, stylish rhythms, and catchy choruses to get you headbanging here, we can assure you of that.

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Rezn - Burden

Rezn are on a roll, with a third album in 15 months and no sign of any dips in quality along the way. Burden tackles both expansive, contemplative psychedelia and thick, doomy heaviness, and the songs in the former style are enchanting in how they depict grand, sparse soundscapes that are perfect to zone out and get lost in. That being said, Rezn in a heavy mood are nothing to be sniffed at, with some dense distortion for the crawling stoner doom riffs; said heaviness is also taken to another level near the end of the album due to a scene-stealing guest feature from Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles.

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Schubmodul - Lost In Kelp Forest

Stoner metal is such a desert genre: it's dry, it's hot, it's sun-baked, it's wearing sunglasses. The geographic imagery is unambiguously arid. But the desert isn't the only place you can get lost on a spiritual journey: beneath the waves stand endless forests of salty green streamers, slowly swaying in the deep flow of blue, warmed by a diffuse sun just beyond the meniscus of consciousness. Schubmodul are kitted up to dive, taking with them a collection of singing guitar leads and gorgeous grooves as they swim through the lush atmosphere of their own making. Lost In Kelp Forest has no need of by-the-numbers desert rock: this is an album of color and creativity, a whole new way to get lost in a sea of feeling. Ah, and don't forget... sometimes the ocean is scary.

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Sergeant Thunderhoof - The Ghost Of Badon Hill

Sergeant Thunderhoof have risen through the ranks with a decade's worth of quality stoner metal, but they've never reached the heights of Badon Hill before. With an old friend as a new member, a lot of lessons in hand from This Sceptred Veil, and a concept that touches on some pretty big legends, Sergeant Thunderhoof are sturdier and grander than ever before: The Ghost Of Badon Hill melds heavy stoner crunch, mighty epic doom vocals, and shades of folkloric mystery for an album that is atmospheric and ancient-sounding. At this rate, this thunderous ungulate ought to be a general by the next album.

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Slift - Ilion

It's a pretty thin line between a heavy psych (and by extension a space rock) record and a stoner metal one. But the question shouldn't really be "Is Slift metal now?" but rather "Is Slift heavy enough to work in the same way a metal band would?". Akin to Ummon, Ilion is still an hour-plus-long odyssey, and one where the space/psych rock is mostly used in the long-form, jammy kind that works with the elongated songs, but it's also much denser; scattered throughout the record are moments where the riffs get more muscular, the drumming more pummeling, the keys more grandiose, the vocals gruffer. Slift don't need to be heavy to be interesting, but their newfound heaviness on Ilion showcases their versatility and creativity enough to prove how much DNA they share with metal without feeling the need to be metal.

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Sun Moon Holy Cult - Sun Moon Holy Cult

Female-fronted Black Sabbath-, Electric Wizard-, and Sleep-worshiping psychedelic stoner doom... NorCal or Portland you think? Try four Chinese musicians living in Japan, so interesting origins and POV. While you can undoubtedly hear their influences, it seems it's its own beast formed by their experiences. "Be Bongwater, my friend." The vocals are pushed back in the mix, with some reverb. The drums and bass form a groove that feels part Sabbath, part Sleep offshoot Om, only awash in guitar riffs and fills awash in psychedelic distortion. And run all that through a flange. The end result is doomy, stoney, and at times quite droney. This is definitely one of those late-night, home-from-the-bars one-more-round-("The Killshot")-before-drifting-off-to-sleep (Sleep?) albums.

Sunnata - Chasing Shadows

After some unconventional experimentation on 2021's Burning In Heaven, Melting On Earth, Sunnata have reverted slightly back towards the sound of Outlands on Chasing Shadows, but the genre-defying Poles continue to throw up plenty of surprises across the album. The chanted, almost shamanic tone of the vocals goes naturally with the twisted psychedelia of the instrumentation, which is never too far away from transitioning into an effortlessly groovy stoner riff. Sunnata also continue to explore elements of post-metal within their music to great effect across this hypnotizing release.

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Ufomammut - Hidden

After the rejuvenation that was 2022's Fenice (aptly titled after the Italian word for "Phoenix"), one that pushed the band's sound even further into space rock territories, Hidden grounds Ufomammut's sound back in heavier and denser territories while still keeping enough of the space rock touches of its predecessor, albeit in a beefier soundscape. Acting as a celebration of the band's 25th anniversary, Hidden strikes a neat balance between staying in familiar waters and not making the exact album twice.

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