Demonic Death Judge - Absolutely Launched (Album Review)

Release Date: April 30th 2025. Record Label: Suicide Records. Formats: DD/Vinyl

Absolutely Launched - Tracklisting

1.90's Violence 03:34

2.Natural Wine Guy

3.You've Got Red On You

4.Goner 04:54

5.Dead Dogs

6.I Realize That... Now

7.Spliffhanger

8.Absolutely Launched

Members:

Jaakko Heinonen - vocals

Eetu Lehtinen - bass

Lauri Pikka - drums

Toni Raukola - guitar

Review

Sludge/Stoner Metal heavyweights Demonic Death Judge are back with a BANG after a five year absence with Absolutely Launched. This record sees the band leave the deeper depths of the aquatic world heard on their previous records and launch an almighty assault on DRY LAND but still keeping the oceanic theme but a healthy dose of black humour which you can see from the brilliant album cover.

Demonic Death Judge covers a lot of ground on this release with inspiration coming from The Melvins and UNSANE with the band still providing their own wicked blend of Sludge/Stoner Metal grooves. The harsh vocals of Jaakko Heinonen once again surround the fast-paced instrumental sounds with a heavy dose of FINNISH underground attitude being contained within the kick-ass lyrics. This is Demonic Death Judge’s most outrageous and fun record to date. There’s still a high amount of bleak sounding moments but the band are sure having a hell of time on this record and no doubt the listener will too.

The songs are spiky and fresh with a GONZO sense of Surf Rock appearing on the opening tracks of 90’s Violence and Natural Wine Guy. Some clever word play and fast paced sounds blends Doom, Sludge and Stoner Metal imagery into a frenzied metallic approach which can be quite melodic in places but still maintaining their subtle aggressive attitude.

The delicious and seedy level of FUZZ ROCK becomes ever more dominant throughout the album but most noticeable on the excellent third track You’ve Got Red On You which has first rate melodic Psychedelic passages. Jaakko’s vocals once again adds a demented atmosphere to proceedings with music that will appeal to fans of Church Of Misery and BONGZILLA. Slightly depressing soundbytes appear which shows that Demonic Death Judge haven’t left their old school vibes behind even within this record, perhaps being their most modern sounding record to date.

The band reinvent themselves in so many different ways with Absolutely Launched with subtle changes in melodies and story themes projected into the album. What hasn’t changed is Demonic Death Judge’s talent for conjuring up a mighty THICK WEEDIAN RIFF out of thin air and transforming into a highly original style of music you haven’t heard before. The record is also heavily distorted with plenty moments of down tuned instrumental sounds where the AMPS most definitely at bursting point. The aquatic moments add an almost surreal Post-Rock vibe before the classic Stoner Metal surroundings restore creative order.

Other great tracks to check out are: Dead Dogs, Spliffhanger and Absolutely Launched.

Absolutely Launched is dynamite entertainment which sees Demonic Death Judge on top of their game and having a blast from start to finish. This is one of the band's standout albums to date and will impress anyone who listens to it. 

Brilliant stuff. End Of.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Viral Propaganda PR for the promo.

Absolutely Launched will be available to buy on DD/Vinyl via Suicide Records from Wednesday April 30th 2025.

Links

Facebook | BandCamp

Demonic Death Judge - The Trail (Album Review)

Release date: March 27th 2020. Label: Suicide Records. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

The Trail – Tracklisting

1.Cougar Charmer

2.Filthy as Charged 

3.Hardship

4.Elevation 

5.Shapeshifting Serpents 

6.Flood

7.Fountain of Acid

8.Cougar Charmer (Reprise)

9.The Trail

10.We Have to Kill

Members

JAAKKO HEINONEN

EETU LEHTINEN

LAURI PIKKA

TONI RAUKOLA

Review

The Trail is Demonic Death Judge 5^th album and it’s quite possibly their most experimental and varied offering to date and that’s saying something about this great band. As DDJ have never been afraid to change musical style of direction whilst remaining in the confinements of Doom, Sludge and Stoner Metal. This new album changes that slightly by allowing the band to adapt different aspects to their music.

The Trail maybe not as easy or accessible to listen as their past efforts such as Seaweed but it doesn’t make it any less captivating as such. This album still has DDJ’s trademark riffs buried within but allows to be more creative with their music.

Opening song – Cougar Charmer – is more of an Acoustic offering with elements of Americana style melodic rock being played at a slow pace. It’s not the most exciting songs to open the album with but things can change in a heartbeat on this album and they do with the next song.

Second song – Filthy As Charged – is what we come to expect from DDJ with the heavy Progressive Sludge/Stoner sounds with a harsh Doom Metal vibe allowing the band to play a heavier style of music. The band switch things up by adding a more riffier style of music that we haven’t heard before. It’s a good change of pace and shows you as a good indicator this album is going to be way different to what DDJ have released in the past. The trippy Stoner interludes are another cool touch but it’s the heavy sounds that instantly grab your attention and leave you wanting more.

Third song – Hardship – carries on the harsh vocals and Post-Doom based guitar sounds for a song that perfectly drifts from one heavy environment to the net whilst retaining a solid melodic groove. The distorted guitars have an almost Industrial feel to them and DDJ start to add a more commanding presence to their music. Wait till you hear the trippy and experimental guitars towards the end of the song that feel like they quite different to what the band have performed in the past.

Fourth song – Elevation – opens with a 70s Hard Rock riff before the band start laying down their heavy down-tuned Doom/Sludge/Stoner guitar sounds. The atmosphere is less chaotic on this song and has a more organic feel. This is one of my favourite songs on the album with DDJ taking their time on this song and allowing the listener to feel part of the song. The heavy growls are still present but the guitars have a cool Post-Rock melodic flow to them.

There are 10 songs on this album and unfortunately I can’t go through describing everyone. All I can say is the remaining 6 songs are just as good and as challenging as the 4 songs I’ve reviewed here. Demonic Death Judge still play a wide range of different sounds on this album. Some of them are quite challenging at first. As you wouldn’t expect DDJ to go down that route but overall it works and this allows The Trail to perhaps be Demonic Death Judge most creative album to date.

Other cool songs to check out are: Shapeshifting Serpents, Flood, Fountain Of Acid and The Trail. As I feel this is where long time fans will enjoy the most. As they contain the most heaviest grooves on the album and perhaps some of the most recognizable aspects of Demonic Death Judge.

Overall, The Trail is an expertly produced album and one that will keep their fan-base happy for a long time to come. This is another excellent album from Demonic Death Judge and another great addition to their celebrated back catalogue.

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Demonic Death Judge and Viral Propaganda PR

The Trail is available to buy on CD/DD/Vinyl via Suicide Records from March 27^th 2020.

Links:

Facebook | BandCamp

Demonic Death Judge - Seaweed (Album Review)

Release date: January 13th 2016. Label: Suicide Records. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

Seaweed – Tracklisting

Taxbear

Heavy Chase

Seaweed

Cavity

Backwoods

Pure Cold

Saturnday

Peninkulma

Band Members

Lauri Pikka - Drums

Jaakko Heinonen - Vocals

Eetu Lehtinen - Bass

Toni Raukola - Guitar

Review

Demonic Death Judge have been playing their brand of Psychedelic Sludge/Doom/Stoner Metal since 2009 and they show no signs of stopping with their new album – Seaweed. The album carries on the same laid back psychedelic sounds found on their last album – SkyGods – though with the band returning to the heavier riffs they made their name with.

Seaweed has a great balance moving between the heavier sludgier riffs and then to the more groove laiden psychedelic stoner vibes. Opening track – Taxbear – sees Demonic Death Judge play a crunching riffs steeped in heavy psychedelic rock. It's a welcome return from the band with Jaakko menacing vocals giving a true sense of DOOM to the overall feel of the album. The band inject some heavy fuzz riffs at different parts of the song. The interplay between the members is perhaps one of the albums strengths as the band are a well organized unit.

As you can tell by the album cover, the main theme is about the sea or the overall state of the sea and oceans of the world. You can read the interview here with more information about the album. This album is quite complex at times both lyrically and musically. Demonic Death Judge have put their heart and souls into this album and you can tell every time you listen to the album.

Seaweed carries on the psychedelic odyssey with tracks such as Heavy Weed, Seaweed and Cavity. These early tracks grab you by the throat and pull you into Demonic Death Judge's volatile world. Seaweed and Cavity are two of the strongest tracks on the album showing how creative the band can truly be. As Seaweed and Cavity sees the band venture into more Ambient/Post-Rock territories. They've done this kind of thing before but not as good as this.

If you're not interested in understanding the overall theme of the album then Demonic Death Judge will impress you with the loud and heavy riffs they have at their disposal. Each song on the album is a major highlight. As the band build new sounds we haven't heard from before but they also play familiar sounds from their excellent back catalogue.

The band are known for creating epic progressive songs and Seaweed is no different. As four of the tracks run near the seven minute mark. This allows the band to add many different effects and sounds. Seaweed is perhaps Demonic Death Judge's most complete album to date. As the album has a beginning, middle and an end. Everything fits together to tell a highly intriguing story that only adds to the hypnotic effect of the album.

The production is superb and this is what I always expect from the band. As they always release a superbly produced record. If Seaweed was released in 2016 then I would have easily classed this as one of my top five albums of 2016. It's seriously that good. Seaweed is an album you cannot ignore. If you're new to the world of Demonic Death Judge then this album is the best place to start. If you're a long-time fan then be prepared for their best album to date.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Demonic Death Judge for the promo. Seaweed will be available to buy on CD/DD/Vinyl via Suicide Records from January 13^th 2017.

Links:

Official | Facebook | BandCamp

An Interview with Jaakko Heinonen from DEMONIC DEATH JUDGE

Demonic Death Judge have been playing their blend of Psychedelic fused Sludge/Doom/Stoner Metal since 2009. Since then they have released a stunning array of EP's and albums that have won the band critical acclaim within the Doom/Sludge/Stoner Metal community.

I've been fan of the band for a long time and I was pretty excited when they announced they would be releasing a new called – Seaweed from January 13^th 2017. I've heard the album and I'm happy to say that the album ranks as one of their finest works to date. A haunting and complex odyssey that sees the band play a more distinctive blend of Sludge/Stoner Metal with the band adding elements of Ambient/Post-Rock vibes to their overall sound.

I wanted to catch-up with the band as it's been quite a while since we last chatted. I'm happy to report that Jaakko Heinonen (Vocals) from Demonic Death Judge agreed to this interview.

Hi Jaakko. How are things with you today.

Things are just great! Can’t wait to get the DDJ show on the road with the new album next year.

We are here to talk about your stunning new album – SEAWEED. So what can people expect from the album.

Thank you for the compliment. People can expect some good old solid DDJ material once again. I don’t think that much has changed, there might be a little bit more groovy rock and roll type of stuff at times, but we do still turn the heavy sludge screw on big time on this album. There are lots of different aspects there, which I really like.

Was this an easy or hard album to record compared against your previous albums.

Maybe the preparation for this one was a bit more difficult than on the previous ones as we all live around Finland these days. But that didn’t turn out to be a problem after all. We just basically didn’t have that much time to potter around and drink beer. As for the actual recording of the album things went as smoothly as possible. Couple of days in a proper studio recording drums and the rest we just did at Lauri's sauna house by ourselves which was really enjoyable. There we had time to do what we do best and what is essential for any good recording session, drink beer. Lots of it.

Did you do anything differently recording this album compared to SkyGods.

Not really no. Different locations as where we did Skygods but pretty much the same set up. We recorded the drums in studio with an engineer behind the buttons and the rest we did by ourselves as we’ve done before.

I've listened to the album non-stop recently and can say it's perhaps your strongest work to date. I admire the different tones and styles you've incorporated onto the album. It feels like the perfect continuation from SkyGods but also matching the heaviness some of your earlier releases. Is that a fair assumption to make.

Yeah I think you’re quite right there. We didn’t have a plan or anything to try to sound like this or that. But obviously there’s a certain style to what we’re doing and it just turned out to be heavy and sludgy once again. Not a huge surprise there. But of course there are some new elements to it and we are always very open to try new and different ideas.

Is the album a concept of sort. What is the overall story of Seaweed.

No it’s not a concept album as such but there are some recurring themes about the Baltic sea and the worrying state of it. We all come from a southern seaside city of Kotka so the sea was and is a big part of our lives. And for me personally, as I lived on an island there and did a lot fishing and stuff it influenced me a lot writing this album. The pollution, the way people treat wildlife and that sort of thing made me really wonder what is going on here? There’s this seaweed that makes the water unswimmable and the fish die out and it’s all to do with pollution. It’s sad stuff and I had to write about it.

Another thing that impressed me about the album was your use of ambient and almost post-rock sounds. Especially on tracks such as Cavity. Did you want to experiment with different sounds and atmospheres on this album.

Every time when we start doing new material we try to bring in some new aspects, we don’t necessarily know what but more just experiment with some effects and stuff and see what we can come up with. There are some guitar sounds and riffs that Toni and Eetu came up with that are really cool and they both have a bit of a history with the post-rock thing so I think that’s where it might have come from.

What influenced you all when writing and recording this album. As this album does contain some of your strongest work to date.

For me lyrically I was influenced with lots of stuff as it was written in a span of a year. But the biggest thing was the nature and sea and coming back from it to your hectic daily life in the city. There are definitely both sides on the album, some stuff is about the evils of money and some about getting wasted in the woods and fishing. Musically I think the biggest influence were some classic rock albums by Thin Lizzy, Eagles etc. Don’t know if you can hear much of that on the album though.

I think the album cover makes the album stand out. Who designed the cover. Did you have much input into the final version.

The cover came out really well I must admit. We keep it in the family as we did most of the recording by ourselves and the cover is designed by my girlfriend Päivi Luoma. She’s a really talented graphic designer and she’s done many of our shirt designs and everything. We had a really clear idea of what we wanted and gave her the idea and she produced the goods.

The album is being released via Suicide Records. How did you hook up with them. Did you have any other label offers to release the album.

I think we could’ve continued with Inverse Records as before but Suicide Records showed more of enthusiasm and had good ideas about the release so we switched our alliances to them as they were expanding their operations from Sweden to Finland and the person who started running the Finnish side of the operation, Taru Honkonen is a super cool person and we know her from before, it was a no-brainer to start working with them.

The album is being released on Vinyl. You excited for another of your albums being released on vinyl and limited edition vinyl as well.

Yeah, it’s great to have it on vinyl as well. I think the covers work extra well on the vinyl version and the limited edition with colored vinyl looks amazing. I only buy albums on vinyl these days myself and I know I’m not the only one so there’s definitely demand for them at the moment which is awesome.

How hard is it being a band in today's world. What are the most difficult aspects in being in a band.

It depends how you take it really. Doing what we do I don’t really have any fantasies about paying my bills with slinging a few vinyls and playing some clubs, you know. I think we’ve found a good balance of keeping the wives, girlfriends, kids and the bosses happy and still be able to go out and play some gigs and do some tours. It’s not always easy of course but we’ve managed so far. We’ll see what happens when we break big time and start doing stadium tours and that.

Will you be touring this record heavily. I know it maybe too early to ask. Any plans to tour Europe more..

We will do shows in Finland over the weekends during the winter and spring. There has been some talk about short stint in Sweden and maybe conquering the rest of Europe later on in the year but nothing has been confirmed as of yet. I’m sure we’ll get something sorted.

Do you have any more exciting plans in 2017 that you could share with your fans.

There might be some surprises coming later on next year but we’ll see what happens. There’s a second music video coming nearer the release of the album, so stay tuned for that, it’s going to be great.

What influenced you to become a musician. Was it a specific artist or album that made you decide to play music. And why did you decide to focus primarily on Doom/Sludge/Stoner Metal.

For me the biggest influence was my fathers record collection with some classic rock and blues albums. I was probably 5 years old when I was already rocking ZZ Top, no wonder I’ve had this beard for twenty odd years! Also watching Blues Brothers over and over as a kid made want to go and rock on a stage! We all have been doing different sort of rock/metal stuff for years so it’s not just the Doom/Sludge/Stoner thing. But at the moment it’s a priority. First bands that got me addicted to this thing were Iron Monkey and Electric Wizard, they played a really big part in forming DDJ. And you can probably still hear the influence loud and clear.

Before you go, do you have anything to say to your fans.

First of all thank you all who’ve turned out for our shows, or bought our albums and shirts! Come and say hello when we’re in town. Let’s drink beers and party! Hard!

Thanks for doing this. All the best with the new album as its' a brilliant album. Would have made my best albums of 2016 if it was released early in time. Definitely got a spot already on my best of 2017.

Thank you! It’s been my pleasure!

Words by Steve Howe and Jaakko Heinonen

Thanks to Jaakko for doing this interview. Seaweed will be available to buy via Suicide Records on CD/DD/Vinyl from January 13^th 2017.

Links

Official | Facebook | BandCamp