Dopethrone - Hochelaga ⚡️ | More Fuzz Stoner Rock Blog

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SMOKE! DRINK! DIE!

I would be surprised to find someone familiar with the stoner/doom/sludge scene who has never heard of Dopethrone, but just in case, here is a little catch-up for you. Self-proclaimed “the heaviest D.I.Y. trio from Canada”, they’ve been working with small but nonetheless amazing label records – STB Records and Totem Cat Records – to put out some of the nastiest sludge on the market since 2008. To give you a rough idea of what they sound, take Weedeater and EyeHateGod, put them in a blender and add Electric Wizard’s first LPs for the psychedelic touch. So, yeah, I guess you could say that Dopethrone is pretty heavy.

<a href="http://dopethrone.bandcamp.com/album/hochelaga-3">HOCHELAGA by DOPETHRONE</a>

Hochelaga is their fourth LP and you can clearly hear that they decided to take their sound up to the next level : the riffs are rawer and rougher than ever. The drums and the bass plough you non-stop, it’s like being trampled on by a herd of stoned mammoths. Vincent, who’s also the man behind those insane riffs, sounds like a freakin’ demon who swallowed burning coals along with a few pints of acid and the shittiest whisky he could find. And you won’t find any relief in their lyrics either – it’s all about addiction, despair and loneliness. But Dopethrone does not deliver mere sludge as they mix the genres a bit. If Chameleon Witch and Scum Fuck Blues are straight up sludge, Vagabong and Riff Dealer wander a bit into the psychedelic spheres and lead the listener high, high above the mud and the creepy forests full of fucked up psychopaths and drugged up bikers.

If you have a few minutes to spare, go watch the video for their song “Scum Fuck Blues” just below. It’s a montage of samples taken from old movies and documentaries from the 60’s and it’s the perfect visual embodiment of Dopethrone’s music : it’s disgusting, nasty and violent, but it also shows that the band doesn’t take too seriously what they do. To give you an idea of what I mean by that, between two samples displaying people being grossly murdered and tortured, you can see a guy making rails of cocaine with a machete – you can’t go more ludicrous than that. The Whore Church – the producers of the video – did a really great job capturing the essence of the band.

But the thing I find the most amazing about this pit of madness and heaviness is that you just cannot listen to this album without having a big smile on your face – and I swear it’s not because of the weed or the alcohol – the music is just too damn enjoyable. The whole thing makes you wanna go berserk and die in a blaze of booze, drugs and glory.