Ancestors - Neptune With Fire (2008)

If you like your sludgy metal with generous helpings of prog rock, this is the record for you. Los Angeles-based Ancestors blend stony psychedelia with doom metal riffs to create one of the most satisfying listens of the last few years within the genre; this two-song, 38-minute monolithic magnum opus from '08 called Neptune With Fire.

It's a huge album, an immense and crushing sonic journey to the center of the cosmos and back; although it predates Mastodon's Crack the Skye by a good year, it's cleaved from the same esoteric stone.

Metal heads, psych rockers, stoners, sludge aficionados; listen to this record right now!

Ancestors - Neptune With Fire (2008; Tee Pee Records)

Mastodon - Leviathan (2004)

What can I say about this record that a swift punch in the neck wouldn't convey that much quicker? It's fucking Mastodon; some of the best, most powerful sludge metal to crunch its way out of your speakers in years- add a love for 70's prog and these four Atlantans (two by way of Rochester, NY) have basically paved the way for a massive prog-sludge avalanche that has no doubt wrecked the shit out of your little crap town.

Guitarists Bill Kelliher and Brent Hinds, bassist Troy Sanders and drummer Brann Daillor all met at a High On Fire show in 1999; they bonded over their mutual love for bands like Neurosis and Melvins as well as Thin Lizzy. After trying another singer, they chose to remain a quartet and released Lifesblood in 2001 on Philly's Relapse Records and Mastodon was birthed.

Listen; words fail here big time- just listen...

Mastodon - Leviathan (2004; Relapse Records)