#71tonman

71TONMAN | Of End Times | 2023

Polish Sludge Doom Metal

Artwork by CVSPE

THE DOOMED & STONED SHOW

~Season 5, Episode 19~

This week, Billy Goate (Editor in Chief of Doomed & Stoned) delves into the dark night of the soul, with excerpts from the 1959 documentary, The Faces of Depression, featuring songs for the weary and heavy laden by 71TONMAN, Acid Dream, As I Die At My Desk, Barren Altar, Beldam, Bereft, Boar, Cavernlight, CHRCH, Coffinworm, Cough, Electric Wizard, Lord Mantis, NIGHTWITCHES, Pilgrim, Reptile Master, Serpentine Path, Undersmile, Usnea, Vulture, and Wolvhammer. It's music for the doomed and the damned on tap on The Doomed & Stoned Show!

PLAYLIST

100 PILLS (00:05) 1. Serpentine Path - "Essense of Heresy" (01:30) 2. Coffinworm - "Black Tears" (05:17) 3. Usnea - "Healing Through Death" (12:36) 4. Cough - "Northern Plague" (26:58) 5. Vulture - "Prick of Misery" (34:45)

FEEL LIKE I'M GOING CRAZY (40:52) 6. Boar - "12" (42:14) 7. Pilgrim - "Quest" (49:44) 8. Barren Altar - "Nexus of Grief" (59:37) 9. NIGHTWITCHES - "Of Blood And Earth" (1:07:05)

I DIDN'T CARE (1:17:21) 10. Coffinworm - "A Death Sentence Called Life" (1:18:48) 11. Beldam - "The Foundling" (1:25:15) 12. Lord Mantis - "Levia" (1:33:03) 13. Cough - "Possession" (1:37:51)

SMILING SADNESS (1:48:15) 14. Electric Wizard - "Time To Die" (1:49:31) 15. Wolvhammer - "Eternal Rotting Misery" (1:57:18) 16. As I Die At My Desk - "The Complicated Art of Suffocation" (2:03:21) 17. Cavernlight - "Lay Your Woes Upon The Ground & Know That The End Will Soon Swallow You" (2:10:44)

ALL BLACKNESS (2:18:40) 18. Pilgrim - "Misery Wizard" (2:19:25) 19. Bereft - "We Wept" (2:30:09) 20. Undersmile - "Milk" (2:43:07)

HOPELESSNESS OF HELL (2:49:23) 21. 71TONMAN - "71TONMAN" (2:50:35) 22. Reptile Master - "In the Light of a Sinking Sun" (3:02:50) 23. CHRCH - "Offering" (3:11:28)

I DON'T FEEL BETTER (3:25:12) 24. Acid Dream - Grief: Stage1 (3:25:33)

  *if you dig the music, show the bands some love!

   (thumbnail: "Arachne" by Gustave Dore)

☠

Get your doom on (literally) with a Doomed & Stoned t-shirt!

Become a High on Fiver supporter of The Doomed & Stoned Show and get the exclusive patron-only show, with Billy's picks from the latest releases along with rarities.

Dig even deeper with Doomed & Stoned's ongoing scene-by-scene underground heavy music compilation series. "Name Your Price" on Bandcamp.

To the Mountain Festival II

71TONMAN-NEGATIVE

71TonMan | War Is Peace // Peace Is Slavery | 25th June, 2021

Polish Sludge Doom Metal

Artwork by SNDNBCK

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

It's hard for me to think of a band more punishing the aptly titled 71TONMAN. Five guys from Wrocław with an attitude and then some that have been compared to Primitive Man, Suma, and the late, great Indian. It's hard to imagine a more dour landscape than 'Earthwreck' (2017 - Black Bow Records). We receive fair warning of it with that post-apocalyptic album art by Szymon Siech and with its opening number, "Lifeless," plunging us into a timeline of misery and restless wandering among a corpse-strewn landscape.

The snarky humor that embraced us with 71TONMAN's eponymous debut in 2013 has given way to something much more somber, touching on notes of sadness in a way that has rarely felt so effective (from 7:25 on, especially). This isn't the kind of wear it on your sleeve sadness of Katatonia, Pallbearer, or 40 Watt Sun, this is cavernous, draining loss you feel from deep within your gut. 71TONMAN sees little to hope for but survival in this dog-eat-dog world, where nature hates us and we hate each other even worse. The record is a masterpiece of doom, bleeding with sorrow and regret at the waste of humanity. And absolutely must for your 2017 collection and one I'll be personally revisiting often, especially in these dark times.

If you're looking for something more superficially "evil" like Electric Wizard, you've come to the wrong place. This is the war crater of nightmare only stalwart nihilists like Primitive Man, Weltesser, Meth Drinker, Sea Bastard, Undersmile, Coffins, and Layne Staley in his waning days have dared to penetrate. If there were ever a soundtrack waiting for the aftermath of a world teetering on the brink of self-destruction, Earthwreck is it. The album receives it liberty on September 22nd via Black Bow Records and can be gotten here closer to that time.

Until then, resign yourself to the awesome misery that is "Lifeless," premiering this weekend via Doomed & Stoned. Rarely has an album sounded so bleak, so devastating. I haven't heard a darker, more somber doom metal album this year, or for a while, truthfully. It's not so much sad as it is mired in tragedy. There's a certain strength underlying its despair, however, and as such I think it will be a trusted companion for many years to come. If you're a connoisseur of dark, damning doom that captures so perfectly the mood of desolation, then give ear...

EARTHWRECK by 71TONMAN

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Review by Billy Goate

Artwork by SNDNBCK

This year, 71TONMAN reaches a milestone than few acts ever see, crossing the 10 year mark as a band. The Wrocław rowdies have always embodied the best qualities of doom, starting with their rambunctious self-titled debut 2013. By 2016, the band had a new singer and their music turned a corner, too, becoming entirely more bleak and dismal. The following album Earthwreck on Black Bow Records was among the darkest records of the decade, capturing humanity's insessive bent towards self-destruction so convincingly.

I've been anxious to see where the band would go next, and was pleased to see them on another label with good company: Transcending Obscurity Records. An EP this time which 71TONMAN has named, 'War Is Peace/Peace Is Slavery' (2021). That clever turn of a phrase will be familiar to anyone who has read George Orwell's writings.

Indeed, few novels were revisited more during that pandemic lockdowns than 1984, one of the few classics that look to the future not with hope, but with extraordinary pessimism. In the H.G. Wells novel The Shape of Things To Come, the author posits a world in which science will ultimately conquer every backward religious belief, find cures for disease, and take us into the sky.

Orwell's future is likewise high-tech, minus the social progress. Now an AI-like system called Big Brother monitors one's every movement and mood. Sometimes in an effort to right our own course, humans overcorrect, leading to restrictions on freedom, speech, and expression. Indeed, this is a dystopia in which Thought Police prevent insurrection by guarding carefully against critical thinking and reasoning.

Certain "truisms" are introduced to condition people to be at home with cognitive dissonance, so they will blithely accept totalitarian revisions of fact and history. Among them are the sayings: War is Peace, Peace is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. There is no mistaking 71TONMAN's send-back to the Orwellian worldview as each song bears one of these inscriptions as its title.

Beginning with Big Brother's trademark slogan, "War Is Peace," the band takes the logic that has swept millions of young people away into foreign lands to "make the world safe for democracy" and writes its inevitable conclusion.

The song unfurls with the pungent smoke of battle, accompanied by a rumbling underbelly of fuzz, caustic feedback, and hissing amperage. Menacing guitars strum a disquieting theme in the aftermath of mankind's destruction, with the desolation heralded by the brutal drumbeats and the deliberative symbol clashes. An irradiated voice cries out from the ashen ruin:

LIFE'S GONE NOT ONE THING EXISTS EYES CLOSED MOUTH SHUT MANKIND'S EXTERMINATED MANKIND'S DEAD WORLD'S BREATHLESS WORLD'S DEAD CORPSES ON THE STREETS CORPSES IN THE TRASH

The tenor is not merely angry, it is anguished. One picks up on a real sense of loss as riff and rhythm conspire to relate the story.

Enter "Peace Is Slavery", a song that steps away from the battlefield with a fevered sense of urgency, warning with firebreathing shieks:

THE END THE END IS COMING TO THE WORLD THAT'S DYING START THE COUNTDOWN TOMORROW IS NO MORE EVERYTHING TURNS INTO DUST

The song concludes on an ominous and definitive note:

DON'T SEEK FOR COVER IT'S TOO LATE THE JUDGEMENT DAY'S A-COMING...

Now that's what I call doom! Doom in all its raw, nihilistic truth. Doom in its stoic acceptance of our eventual extinction. Doom -- the last defiant fist raised against the tyranny of life. It's surely too much for many to bear, this thought of no tomorrow. We have romanticized the notion of a post-apocalyptic world (one in which humanity always gets a second chance), to the point that the fires of apocalypse have become unbelievable, an orgy of science fiction. Thus we continue to live out this collective deathwish as a society, fingers crossed behind us for good luck.

This brings us to the notion that "Ignorance Is Strength". Our final track is a windswept void, bearing faint echoes of the homosapien's last stand. Our pernicious cycle of greed, violence, and nescience has finally swallowed us whole. Now there is naught but strange, ethereal will-'o-the-wisps to hint at the tragic story. This is the ill-fated end of the "Dark World" Saint Vitus once lyricised.

More than an artistic afterthought (the track clocks almost 10 minutes), these strange sonic moments serve as emphatic punctuation to end the opus. I heartily recommend listening in the dark lonely hours of the night for full effect.

71TONMAN's new record, though brief, is nothing shy of mortifying. KK (vox), TG (guitar), MZ (guitar), JW (bass), and JJ (drums) once again make a fine team, relating this story of the End Times with striking atmosphere and merciless cynicism. Look for the EP to drop on Friday, July 9th via Transcending Obscurity Records (pre-order here). In the meanwhile, you can stream it all right here, right now, as Doomed & Stoned proudly presents the world premiere.

Give ear...

LISTEN: 71TonMan - War is Peace/Peace is Slavery

Some Buzz

As the name suggests, 71TonMan are purveyors of earth-shatteringly heavy music and their brand of doom/sludge metal furthermore is acerbic and crust-scraping.

Bands in this style rarely have this scathing, face-melting sound and it's strangely addictive, particularly the combination of huge, stomping riffs and absolutely vile vocals delivered in an almost grindcore manner.

War Is Peace // Peace Is Slavery (Sludge/Doom Metal) by 71TONMAN (Poland)

The contrast against the backdrop of collapsing buildings and the ensuing chaos and all-round mayhem is gratifying despite this being an EP, a precursor for something even greater to come.

We revel in quality sludge and this pairs well with the mammoth release of the sludgelords Eremit, for that matter even Subterraen and Jupiterian in the past, even though the expression of this one is unparalleled.

For fans of Primitive Man, Subterraen, Eyehategod, Flesh Parade, Soilent Green, and Jupiterian

2021 Label Sampler by Transcending Obscurity Records

Follow The Band