As you can kind of guess from their moniker, this lord likes to dabble in certain hallucinogenic substances that shall remain unnamed for the remainder of this review. It comes as no surprise then that Dopelord’s prime inspiration comes on the one hand from the overlord of any metal band, doom or otherwise, being Black Sabbath and then another band who incidentally has a record out that starts with the same four letters. I’m talking of course about the cvlt classic ‘Dopethrone’ from the one and only Electric Wizard. With no small degree of dark humor this Polish outfit brings heavy handed, psychedelic doom that more than once ups the ante with some good old Motörhead vibes. This is particularly apparent in the alternating vocal duties between the bass player Piotr Zin’s Ozzy style wail and the guitarist’s Pawel Mioduchowski’s dead ringer for Lemmy, rawk ‘n roll rasp.

It’s been a busy year for Monolord. After a five year gap between the previous album ‘Your time to Shine’ – not counting the stop gap EP ‘It’s all the Same’– they returned just before summer with ‘Neverending’, their sixth studio full length. So just in time to hit the summer festivals and maybe you were one of those lucky ones that got to see them at this year’s Alcatraz already. Yet, do not fret if you’ve missed out during the summer because with autumn comes doom, even all the way to Sint Niklaas.

The band began way back in 2013 as a small inconspicuous side project by the members of the Swedish boogie band Marulk as an outlet for their heavier tendencies. Very much like the previous band their initial output was again highly influenced by Electric Wizard. Just listen to their mind melting magnificence on their debut ‘Empress Rising’. In a different way than to their more substance induced friends from Poland, this Swedish threesome has broadened their sound over various albums to a more openly seventies inspired sound. Still heavy as you can get with the same eerie vocals, but much richer and diverse. They kicked it off with a energetic track off the latest record ‘Iodine’, alternating with some tracks from the last two albums mainly.

It’s clear that the guys on stage were having an absolute ball and would have continued all night long if they could have. After a hypnotizing version of the title track from their debut ‘Empress Rising’, I figured they would call it a day. But no, they just went into a stunning rendition of ‘The Last Leaf’ whereby both the guitarist as their hyperactive bass player headed down into the crowd and continued playing. And even after that they still threw in another fan favorite ‘Rust’ and come back full circle with ‘Inside a Collider’. The title of their latest record came to mind, as they really did not feel like a never-ending story, but hey, you won’t hear me complain? Not at all.