siLLy puPPy The esoteric sounding ASTRAL CULT was formed in the Sacramento, California outskirts in the city of Folsom sometime in the early 2010’s by Ryan Masser (guitar), Stefan Henskens (bass), Andrew Dehart (drums) and Samantha Arramith (vocals) and quickly nurtured its fondness of tube amplifiers, fuzzy pedals and feedback techniques along with heavy drop down tuning and Black Sabbath inspired doom metal and began to craft a heavily distorted style of psychedelic stoner doom metal. A few lineup changes have occurred over the years with Ryan Priester taking up guitars and Adam Moore on drums.

While starting out as a rather awkward sounding bluesy rock stoner metal band with the female singer Samatha Arrasmith belting out bluesy vocal styles on the self-titled debut, she would soon part ways leaving Alexandre Lapuh to take over the vocal department and from then on the band began to take on a more psychedelic stoner style of classic epic doom metal bands like Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus and Solstice. With his more dramatic histrionic style of vocal range, the band got warmed up on the second release “The Sacred Flame” but really came together on its third album installment BOAZ which emerged in 2018.

BOAZ is a veritable barrage of the ultimate fuzz guitar riff frenzy with nice traditional doom metal arrangements accompanied by Lapuh’s charismatic vocal performances that narrated the diverse themes of the ancient gods, nature, paganism, the insanity of the human condition and even outer space. BOAZ features five slinking tracks that clock in at just under 35 minutes. With tracks ranging from the short “Mayim” to the sprawling 13-minute “Invocation of Ra-Horakhty,” ASTRAL CULT has mastered the art of long doomy soundscapes that maximize the distortion and fuzz guitar techniques that offer a satisfying display of interesting distortion effects and excess amplification.

While stoner doom metal bands are a dime a dozen, ASTRAL CULT rises above the ranks with a mysterious occult demeanor that evokes the teachings of Aleister Crowley and other classic practitioners of the esoteric magical systems all the while delivering these themes wrapped up in a nice mix of epic Candlemass styled doom metal and the psychedelic tones and timbres of Electric Wizard, Jex Thoth and Sleep. While the doom metal is very traditional with slow plodding grooves, echoey bass lines and fuzzed out guitar grunge, the compositors are a bit more developed than the average generic stoner metal band with nice twists and turns that showcase the band’s ability to build tension and crafty intermissions to connect varying motifs.

The true star of the show though is no doubt is vocalist’s Alexandre Lapuh’s passionate vocal style that evokes the classic Messiah Marcolin range and expressionism, a vital element to make this sort of music rise above a rather plodding monotony. Nathan Priester also displays a nice array of guitar tricks to allow more expressionism than the usual stoner band with not only nice doomy riffing techniques but also wah-wah soaked solos and interesting interludes with a wide range of tones, timbres and pedal effects to deliver a nice varied mix of sound effects. The band is also versatile in the use of tempos and dynamics which adds another layer of control to its style. Overall i find BOAZ to be a highly competent and exciting slab of crafty stoner doom metal and bar far the band’s finest effort. Whether it will release another album after six years remains to be seen.