You could easily argue that doom and stoner are the two oldest subgenres in metal, given that they trace their roots all the way back to heavy music’s foundational text, Black Sabbath’s debut album. Despite that age, however, the two styles are still spry, bounding forth every year with many seminal bands maintaining their acidic appeal. And 2023 was no different.
This year, stoner and doom have been sustained by not just your usual suspects (Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Cirith Ungol, Ahab, etc.), but some surprising new names. The Acacia Strain took an album to jump from deathcore to sluggish misery, while up-and-comers Green Lung announced their presence in a series of infectiously folkloric songs. Limiting the genres’ greatest albums of 2023 to just 10 was a challenge, but we at Hammer persisted to give you a whistlestop tour of stoner and doom’s immaculate health.
