Windhand: Soma (Relapse, 9/17/13)
An absolute monolith of music, doom-metal outfit Windhand’s Relapse debut, Soma, hits 75 minutes in just six tracks. It’s not just the sheer size of the thing, either: the bass is pushed to the front of the mix, andDorthia Cottrell’s vocals are half-buried and cloaked in reverb, resulting in a satisfyingly thick sludge.
It’s easy to lose focus while listening to Soma (an attribute that the best stoner-metal albums tend to share), but there’s plenty of deep, Sabbath-esque riffs that pair with hot-blooded rock-and-roll solos over those distant vocals. If you do lose that focus, however, you’ll be in zen-metal bliss as 30-minute album closer “Boleskine” recedes into crackling vinyl and howling winds.