Reviews

Sleep are back without Matt Pike and with an album that doesn’t try to pretend nothing has happened. *Hempispheres* isn’t a revival; it’s a change of direction. The question is whether this new direction leads anywhere.

Besvärjelsen call themselves ‘forest rockers’ – not as a joke, but as a manifesto. Where desert rock has sand and sun-baked gravel, these Swedes have dark Dalarna forests. *Till Glömskan Ad Oblivionem* is the band’s third album, and it’s not about shouting the loudest. It’s about venturing deeper into the forest.

*Antitunes* is the debut album by the Swedish band Græns, a group that describes its own music as "liminal music from Gothenburg." It’s not an unusually bold description of their genre – and after listening to the album a few times, it’s not wrong either.

Sleep are back with a new line-up and a new sound. "The Morrisist" is the second single from their forthcoming album *Hempispheres*, and it signals that the band have no intention of standing still – even without the man who defined their guitar sound for many years.

The title track from Cult of Luna’s forthcoming tenth studio album takes as its starting point an old trauma that resurfaces – written from the perspective of what Johannes Persson calls "the traitor within", a destructive part of oneself that one thought had been defeated. It’s a heavy opener for a band that has always known how to imbue heaviness with meaning.

Oh Hiroshima is a new leaf on my musical tree, and it turns out to be a really pleasant discovery. *And the Dead Tree Gives No Shelter* is driving, dreamy and heavy all at once – with vocals that float above it all.

The Trondheim-based band White Tundra have released their second album, *Stories from the Dark*, via Octopus Rising / Argonauta Records. It’s heavier, darker and more self-assured than their debut, and showcases a band that knows exactly where it’s heading.

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats return in the dead of night with «Shapes of Midnight». A new track that gives off ‘Blood Lust’ vibes. The album of the same name is due out on 18 September.

Elder are back with their seventh studio album, *Through Zero*, out on 29 May 2026. Recorded in Berlin between tours in 2025, this is perhaps the band’s most direct and engaging album to date. For Norwegian fans, the timing is perfect: the band played at Tons of Rock this summer and are set to perform at Rockefeller in February 2027.

The Oslo trio Draken – Even Hermansen (guitar/vocals), Hallvard Gaardløs (bass/vocals) and André Drage (drums) – are back with their third album. *Here Be Draken* is out on Bergen-based Dark Essence Records. It’s an album that hits you right in the gut and doesn’t hold back.

Swedish band Tidal Wave are back with their third album, *Volume Tree*, released on 5 June 2026 on the Californian record label Ripple Music. The album went straight to the top of the Doom Charts for June 2026 with 13,022 points, cementing the Sundsvall-based band’s status as one of the biggest names in Scandinavian stoner and doom right now.

Bong Voyage is a sort of supergroup made up of members from Håndgemeng, Suncraft and Buskas. *Hedonistic Hard Rock* was released on 8 May 2026 on Ripple Music. It’s a debut album that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: nine tracks of loud, riff-heavy party rock from Oslo.