LORE

Seeing zero reviews for stoner rock's hottest band now makes me really sad. Yep, this is a prog-oriented site, but man have you actually heard ELDER? Their 10-15-min long epics are heavily inspired by the likes of MOTORPSYCHO, ANEKDOTEN, MASTODON, SOUNDGARDEN, even GENESIS and RUSH, and "Lore" is definitely their best album and/or the best starting point with their music. Got a soft spot for all the others too, but while "Dead Roots..." is a bit too jammy and "Reflections..." is basically "Lore, pt.II", this 5-track, 60-min beast of a record strikes a perfect balance between amazing songwriting (those leads!), hard-hitting grooves and impressive musicianship. One last word to sell it to ya? MELLOTRON, loads of it!

Knowing these guys personally makes me really proud - I was the one who brought them to play Kyiv's Robustfest back in 2016 (the biggest/oldest psych/stoner/doom/prog Ukrainian festival) - and they KILL it live. What a fantastic band, don't you miss them!