Stoner doom metal
Poland

Released 20th February, 2026

The foursome from Kielce return with their fourth album of blazed up ballads to the bud.

It’s not new to have counter cultures toward cannabis in countries where it is illegal. A lot of the time the culture is embraced just as much by those that don’t partake.
Now that we’ve cleared any criminal connotations or mistaken incriminations out of the way, there is the BELZEBONG album, THE END IS HIGH to listen to.

The first thing that strikes me are the song titles. BELZEBONG have a history of using amusing weed adjacent puns put to bowel shaking doom metal pummeling, and we have four more here.

…BONG & CHAIN is an eleven minute tour de force of low tuned groove athletics. I’m not usually one for instrumental bands but, considering the shifting riffs and motifs on display here, lyrics would only muddle and diminish the whole vibe playing out. Nuanced beat swings and melody alterations add an excitement to, not just this track, but the entire album. The gothic outro is awesome as well, by the way.

Although I said that BELZEBONG are instrumental, we have the obligatory use of spoken word samples of cult cinema and vintage news reels that are de rigueur of the stoner doom genre.
As on 420 HORSEMEN, where a line from the Clint Eastwood film, The Outlaw Josie Wales heralds a tune full of swing and swagger that implies the menace and innuendo the spoken line threatens. Every instrument is used like a weapon and has the head bobbing.

We should praise the band’s movie knowledge further when, on HEMPNOTIZED, a trippy sludge jam, we have a moment of the 1980 horror, Motel Hell turn the film’s eerie foreshadowing into an Electric Wizard style tribute to the tab. It is some lovely sounding doom.

As the end does indeed, draw nigh, the end finishes on a high with REEFER MORTIS. I was iut for a walk the first time hearing this and I must have looked like a loon air strumming those dug in chords and pulling stink faces throughout the track. The wicked, wah happy solo work and tactical drumming was dark and delightful.

As mentioned, I normally need vocals in my metal. Even though I don’t always listen to the words, I like to hear them, and it appears that BELZEBONG has made me have a little rethink.

This is an album that gifts you with riffs upon riffs without making riff salad. They are purposeful and expertly managed by the backline to make a fertile place for the listener to get stuck in and dig it.

THE END IS HIGH by BELZEBONG is out now via Heavy Psych Sounds and available to stream from all major sites.
Also on digital download at the BELZEBONG Bandcamp, and on physical formats at the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Bandcamp.