Of late I’ve been on a real Prog kick, with albums from classic acts like Yes and Jethro Tull being matched by tour tickets pinned to the board in my living room, as well as newer acts like Rosalie Cunnningham and the recently reviewed Hex A.D. (see Ave Noctum passim) being on regular play rotation. Albums stacked with complex time changes, sweeping keyboards and equally sweeping stories of myth, magic and all things hippy. What does that have to do with this Maltese trio and their album ‘The Stoner Side of Doom’ you may ask? The answer? Absolutely sod all. Whilst the aforementioned bands will embrace you with light and love and pour you a herbal tea, Hemplifier will punch you in the chest with a wall of sound, laugh in your face as you try to gather your breath, and then share something also herbal, but definitely not tea, with you.

Intro ‘Headless Chicken’ has the menacing beat of a war drum assembling their troops for conflict, their weapons being the riff and fuzzed out bass, before their ‘Brujo’ steps to the front to summon forth battle magic in the form of a tidal wave of black tar sludge to engulf their enemies as they howl in primal triumph. ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’ this is not. Things get slower and heavier still with ‘Invocation’, a track that stumbles forward with all the dragging invitability of a wave of George A. Romero’s zombies summoned from hell to prey upon the living. Lyrics finally appear in this song in the form of a spell to conjure forth the great god Marijuna, an entity I have no doubt the band are more than regular worshippers of. Things go from the magical to the intergalactic with ‘Gort’, although if space ships travelled at the pace Hemplifier play it’s not likely any alien would leave the orbit of their own planet, let alone travel between star systems. An excerise in the slow and heavy, it advances with the inexhorability of the titular robot colossus (and no, I’m not talking about the excrable 2008 remake!), its weaponry of lazer beams being augmented by screaming feedback and pounding beats. The band’s love of the lethargic continues into ‘Weedcraft’, a number that wallows in its own nominative determination, riffs as dirty as week old bong water stumbling against barely conscious percussion and a thudding bass, before the trio finally achieve a wake and bake to provide an almost indecently fast, well for them anyway, hook to have heads banging and long hair flying.

‘The Stoner Side of Doom’ delivers exactly what the name implies, and should find a ready audience amongst those who unironically match flares with denim cut offs, and long for the days when Electric Wizard did more than 3 or 4 shows a year. If the Malta Doom Festival is resurrected, it may well be thanks to the spell Hemplifier casts; if not expect to see them travelling further abroad, their progress masked by a suspiciously sweet smelling smoke screen.

(7/10 Spenny)

https://www.facebook.com/Hemplifier420

https://hemplifier.bandcamp.com/album/the-stoner-side-of-the-doom