Dopethrone: This is Your Brain on Satan

I don’t know what’s in the water in Montreal, but a lot of dirty, bluesy metal seems to come out of there.  Anyone who’s been reading this blog for awhile knows that I was a huge Barn Burner fan.  I also really enjoyed Mountain Dust, a stoner metal project that Kevin Keegan was (is?) involved in after Barn Burner’s demise.

And now a reader has sent me some more French-Canadian stoner metal to listen to: Dopethrone.  With the sludge of Eyehategod, the blues of Sabbath, and spine-tingling vocals that would make the grimmest black metal dude shiver, Dopethrone is a must-listen for doom and stoner metal fans.

Last month, they released the single “Scum Fuck Blues” off their upcoming album Hochelaga.  Enticing listeners to “Smoke / Drink / Die” is Dopethrone’s job and they take it seriously.  The whole band moves through the song together as one loping machine — imagine a giant, stoned Transformer on its way to destroy your city.

Hochelaga is named after a historic neighborhood that the band describes as “Montreal’s trashiest ghetto” — even Wikipedia admits that it’s “one of the poorest areas of the city.”  I think the folks at Metal Music Studies should publish an analysis of why so many sludge bands have roots in impoverished areas near water; Eyehategod of course sprang from New Orleans, North Carolina “sludge stalwarts” Sourvein have described themselves as being from “the ghetto by the sea”…. And Hochelaga, Dopethrone’s home turf, is right on the Saint Lawrence River.

But I digress… The band has released a video for “Scum Fuck Blues,” which premiered on CVLT Nation February 10.  It’s pretty gory and definitely NSFW — I only made it about a minute in.

I’m looking forward to Hochelaga’s release on April 13th via Totem Cat Records, and in the meantime I plan to check out some of Dopethrone’s previous releases.  What do you think of this band?  Let us know!