Smoke / Doomsday Profit Split LP (Album Review)

Release Date: October 25th 2024. Record Label: Olde Magick Records. Format: DD/Vinyl

Smoke / Doomsday Profit - Track Listing:

1.Smoke - Appalachian Black Magic 08:26

2.Smoke - Scavenger 05:25

3.Smoke - Hellish Rebuke 05:37

4.Doomsday Profit - No Salvation 05:22

5.Doomsday Profit - I Am Your God 04:41

6.Doomsday Profit - Void Ritual 05:26

Doomsday Profit Members

Kevin See (lead guitar, vocals)

Ryan Sweeney (bass, vocals)

Bryan Reed (rhythm guitar, vocals)

Tradd Yancey (drums, percussion)

Smoke Members

Ben Gold (guitar)

Stephen Tyree (bass)

Alex Thurston (drums)

Dalton Huskin (guitar, vocals)

Review

We have two of the best upcoming bands from the Doom/Sludge/Stoner underground scene with Smoke and Doomsday Profit teaming up for this epic sounding split album release. Both bands try their hand at performing new sounds we haven’t heard from them before with each band offering three new tracks. Smoke’s music runs for around twenty minutes with Doomsday Profit going slightly shorter at around sixteen minutes.

Smoke are up first with their batch of tracks with Appalachian Black Magic, Scavenger and Hellish Rebuke with their NOLA fuelled take on Sludge/Stoner grooves. There’s an essence of classic sounding DOWN appearing within Appalachian Black Magic with a demonic and smokey SOUTHERN BOOGIE beat that soon sees the band change into a style of Southern Metal with an aggressive Stoner Metal beat. The vocals from Dalton Huskin have an essence of Proto-Doom behind them especially with how he delivers some of his lyrics behind a masquerade of finely tuned WEEDIAN smoke.

The songs are superbly constructed and aggressively melodic with moments of distorted grooves with the quieter moments of all the tracks. Appalachian Black Magic and Hellish Rebuke are the standout tracks from Smoke with a fine amount of hard rocking movements that powers through the barrage of modern day Doom, Sludge and Stoner Metal with even time for Psychedelic energy starting to form with a glorious devilish FUZZ ROCK swagger. I admire the level of SONIC DISTORTION the band delivered with the superb second track Scavenger especially when matched against the Swamp Blues Metal sound they opt for the majority of their music.

Doomsday Profit are no strangers to the blog as I’ve featured them multiple times and you can call me a fan of their music and they don’t disappoint here. Their music is firmly rooted within the Sludge Metal sound with a gloriously downbeat DOOM METAL approach with that eerie flexible Psychedelic Stoner Metal edge that allows the band to play a classic style of Heavy Metal guitar solos along the way. There’s some influences from bands such as High On Fire, Mastodon and Motorhead being played here especially within their outstanding opening track No Salvation which has sublime harsh growls and vocals throughout. Though, it’s the music that impresses the most especially when the band blends distorted harmonics and multi-layered screeching guitars with a killer rhythm section adding more volume to the sound.

The other two tracks of I Am Your God and Void Ritual easily match the dark theatrics of No Salvation but there’s an even more despairing dirge ridden Sludge Metal vibe that feels like it was created within the pits of hell. However, the band’s vocals take a delightful and melodic turn whilst still having a DEVIL-ISH quality to them. The lyrics are primarily DOOM METAL obsessed but the band’s clever use of SONIC and PSYCHEDELIC textures allows Doomsday Profit to become part of the Post-Stoner or Post-Metal world at times before returning to their own dark domain.

Smoke and Doomsday Profit have delivered the fucking goods with this excellent split album release. This album gives both bands the chance once again to prove why they’re both worth giving a damn about and perhaps gain some more fans along the way. This is another standout split album release being released in 2024 and I implore you all to add this album to your record collection now. 

This is an unmissable release. End Of.

Words by Steve Howe

Smoke / Doomsday Profit split record is available to buy now on DD/Vinyl via Olde Magick Records.

Doomsday Profit Links

Official | Facebook | BandCamp | Instagram

Smoke Links

Facebook | BandCamp | Instagram

Smoke (VA) & Doomsday Profit (NC) combine forces for a Split LP of Southern psych and doom, out Oct. 25 via Olde Magick Records

Rising psychedelic doom bands Smoke (Lynchburg, Va.) and Doomsday Profit (Durham, N.C.) are pleased to announce the release of a split album, set for release on Oct. 25 via Olde Magick Records.

The LP marks the first time either band will have their music available on vinyl, and includes five previously unreleased songs, as well as a re-mastered version of Smoke’s digital-only single “Scavenger.”

Both Smoke and Doomsday Profit have earned accolades for their previous efforts, but are taking big leaps on this split. Drawing from deep wells of Southern sludge and dark psychedelia, the split release builds upon the promise of both bands’ early efforts with an increasingly exploratory approach to doom, sludge, and heavy psych — both heavier and spacier than the releases that preceded it.

The strains of doom, stoner-rock, sludge, heavy psych and Southern metal that course through the split should appeal to fans of acts as disparate as All Them Witches and Buzzov-en.

Along with the announcement of the release, Doomsday Profit’s lead single “No Salvation,” a longtime fixture of the band’s live sets, is now available to stream.

STREAM “NO SALVATION” VIA SPOTIFY.

"No Salvation" is a bitter critique of certain billionaire iconoclasts' desire to abandon Earth for greener pastures in Space, rather than use their power to fix the problems we have at home. But, as they say, there is no "Planet B."

LP pre-orders available via OLDE MAGICK RECORDS

About Doomsday Profit

Doomsday Profit is an acid-sludge band from Durham, N.C.

The band’s 2021 debut, In Idle Orbit, earned accolades for its dystopian fusion of sludge metal grit, stoner-doom groove, and psych-rock sizzle.

No. 19 — Doom Charts, Nov. 2021
No. 94 — Doom Charts, Top 100 Albums of 2021

“Soon to be iconic.” (The Killchain)

“A band to get truly excited about.” (Outlaws of the Sun)

“One of the future greats in the doom field.” (Toilet Ov Hell)

Eager to make good on the promise of In Idle Orbit, Doomsday Profit has performed throughout the Southeast, playing alongside Thou, Bongzilla, REZN, Black Tusk, The Well, Year of the Cobra, USX, Cosmic Reaper, Restless Spirit, and more.

On this recording, Doomsday Profit is: Bryan Reed (rhythm guitar/vocals), Kevin See (lead guitar/vocals), Ryan Sweeney (bass/vocals), and Tradd Yancey (drums/percussion).

Note: Tradd Yancey left the band following the completion of tracking. David Ruiz (Antiquity) joined the band in 2023.

Website | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | Bandcamp | Spotify

About Smoke

Smoke is a heavy psychedelic rock band from Lynchburg, Va.

Smoke’s Feb. 2022 debut, Groupthink (produced by Ben McLeod of All Them Witches), introduced the band’s fusion of psychedelic rock, Southern fuzz, and Sabbathian doom.

No. 4 — Doom Charts, Feb. 2022
No. 65 — Doom Charts, Top 100 Albums of 2022

“You can’t deny the impressive musical display here.” (Outlaws of the Sun)

“Smoke have crafted something very special…it is a space uniquely their own and one you will never get tired of visiting.” (Desert Psychlist)

In 2023, Smoke teased an aggressive new angle on their sound with the release of “Scavenger.”

Smoke is: Dalton Huskin (vocals/guitar), Ben Gold (lead guitar), Alex Thurston (drums), and Stephen Tyree (bass)

 Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify

Thanks to Doomsday Profit for the info.

Smoke - Groupthink (Album Review)

Release Date: February 11th 2022. Record Label: Self Released.  Format: DD

Groupthink - Tracklisting

1.Groupthink 06:07

2.Temple 05:32

3.One Eyed King 18:44

4.Davidian 06:03

5.The Son of Man 06:58

6.Supplication of Flame 06:46

7.TELAH 08:04

Members

Dalton - Guitar/Vocals

Ben - Guitar

Alex - Drums

Braxton - Bass

Review

Groupthink is the debut album from Southern Rock/Fuzz/Doom Metallers Smoke who are helped along by Sabbathian heavy distorted elements and Psychedelic Stoner Metal for a dark and eerie style of music. The album runs for almost an hour in length with Smoke displaying their Doom Metal credentials down to a fine art with some epic slices of Prog Rock along the way but more about that later.

The album opens up with the stunning title track with Smoke displaying a cool slow paced atmosphere with the multiple levels of distorted noises and sounds that range from classic Doom Metal to seedy Stoner Metal with the Fuzz/Southern Rock influence sandwiched in between for a meatier style of music. The instrumental music does sound and feel quite raw but it allows Smoke to dictate their own style of music for a song that holds your attention superbly well. There is an aggressive tone and seediness to Dalton’s vocals that are also quite relaxing when the quieter moments appear. 

Second song Temple starts with a Post-Doom/Post-Stoner groove with laid-back vocals setting the scene but listen to the lyrics and you can hear that this song has a dark element running within and Smoke soon bust out into “AMPLIFIER WORSHIP” and “LOW & SLOW” theatrics. The music becomes more powerful and threatening with the Psychedelic vibe moving the heaviness of the album up a notch in the volume stakes. Smoke shows a seedier FUZZIER outlook on this song that allows this song to be one of the standout tracks on the album.

The standout track on this album has to be the next song One Eyed King that lasts a mouthwatering eighteen minutes in length. With Smoke aiming for a bombastic and theatrical approach where they cover a lot of ground in the world of Southern Rock, Doom Metal and Stoner Metal. This is where Smoke lets their creativity run wild. You can’t deny the impressive musical display on here. The song is wickedly deceptive as well with Smoke going in many different directions you wouldn’t expect. Flashes of different styles of music allows Smoke to build up and play the best grooves and guitar solos on the album. 

Smoke still has around thirty minutes to prove their creative worth here on the remaining four songs and they just do that especially on songs such as Davidian, The Son Of Man and TELAH. The music doesn’t change that drastically from the first half of the album but there’s more in the way of Prog Rock theatrics but still remaining close to the sounds of the earlier songs. Heavy distorted grooves and slow-paced moments are used wisely for a record that’s not afraid to take creative risks when the time calls for it.

The production is excellent throughout with the album having the right style of modern finesse and a fantastic classic vintage sound. Groupthink is a wonderfully action-packed album and if you dig your Doom/Stoner Metal with a Southern based feel with hints of Fuzz Rock and Psych Rock but with nods to bands such as Uncle Acid, SLEEP and Black Sabbath then you’re going to love this like I did.

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

Words by Steve Howe

Links

Facebook | BandCamp | Instagram

Psychedelic Swamp Rockers SMOKE Release New Video For LINEAGE From Upcoming New Album

Psychedelic Swamp/Stoner Rock Band SMOKE will be releasing their upcoming and thrilling new album in November 2021. The bane are aiming big with their release as they have 3 albums planned to be released over the next 2 years.

The 3 albums have one storyline and they're all connected. They'll start touring from 2022 onwards.

SMOKE are releasing the first single LINEAGE on Sunday 4th July but you can see the video of LINEAGE now.

SMOKE are a band to definitely check out and you'll find out about the band over the coming weeks and months. So head over their Social Media Pages and start following them.

Links

Facebook | Instagram