Flood (Aqu)

Musically, Sweden has always been exceptional at sensing and seizing upon significant moments. And at a time when political chaos and societal unrest have deadened our senses, it takes a band with monolithic, hypnotic power to secure our attention and offer a mollifying score to civilization's decline. Sweden's Domkraft are that gloriously massive and land-levelling band. If debut album "The End of Electricity" was the soundtrack to the impending apocalypse, then follow-up "Flood" provides the musical backdrop to armageddon in full, Purge-style swing. A strong contender to dominate a style some are calling the New Wave of Swedish Doom Metal, Domkraft wield a mindbending soundscape of obeliskian riff-majesty, layer upon layer of crushing fury weaving through the wormhole punctures of spacetime in defiance of beginnings and endings. As Echoes and Dust puts it, "They're heavy, yet hypnotizing. They're loud, yet languid. They're simple, yet psychedelic - and so, so good." Majestic, annihilating, reductive and roaring, "Flood" merges blackwater tributaries from Neurois, YOB, Monolord, and Windhand into an all-encompassing torrent of nothingness and resignation, but in the most singable, appealing way imaginable. There is no fan of blistering, melodic doom on earth who should be without this record.