That is quite the statement, right? Well, as a mathematician who has delved deeply into the truths of numbers and patterns, I didn’t choose that title lightly–in spite of understandable accusations of being an agent provocateur.
Truth matters. This article will have you convinced that what Kyuss has helped create, along with pioneering bands like Yawning Man, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu, and Sleep, is a musical community–family–like the world has never seen.
The proof in terms of the bands and festivals is undeniable. It’s perhaps a mystery to most of the planet, but for people like me, it’s a well-established fact that today’s stoner/doom scene has never been rivalled by the combination of quality and deep connectedness between artists and fans.
The music is out there.
In fact, there’s too much. I can’t keep up–and I wrote a 400+ page book about the scene. So, it would seem to be my responsibility to keep up. I can’t. It’s just not being overwhelmed by the quantity, it’s being overwhelmed by the quality.
Everything is getting better–because everything from the history of rock music is being mined without commercial compromise. All bands are trying to take a leaf out of the wisdom book of David Bowie.
“Never play to the gallery. You’ll produce your worst work that way”
Take a band like Germany’s Kadavar, which has been around for 15 years. Their first couple of albums were like Black Sabbath, with psychedelic and prog nods abound. Their latest release has them comfortably back in that period but mining more Beatles and pop influences.
And more and more bands are comfortably leaning into melody and emphasis on vocals while fully aware of where all great rock music came from–every decade since the rock revolution of the late ’60s and early ’70s.
If there is more music to explore and be influenced by the past–and as a band you have the Bowie ethos tattooed to your creativity and curiosity of making music–it only makes sense that the total output of music by the stoner rock/doom scene will be copious and contagious. Ask anyone who’s been around music a long time and has been heavily invested in the “grease and grit” of this scene–this is the BEST period of music in over 50 years.
Hang on, though. The title of this article is that this is the Best Scene ever in music history. How in the hell does it eclipse the ridiculously fertile period of ’68 to ’72? On a music level, it doesn’t. And every band playing today in the scene will say that.
I have never enjoyed listening to new music as much as I have in recent years. We are very much in another period of creativity like when the Age of Bowie began. It’s like the Age of Aquarius is having a Roman orgy with the entire history of rock music.
I grew up listening to a new band called Iron Maiden when I was in high school. I saw Metallica on their Master Of Puppets tour. Except for Nirvana, I saw every Seattle band on their first tour. Then, of course, I also fell down the long rabbit hole of stoner rock when I found Kyuss, Monster Magnet, and Fu Manchu.
I have experienced a lot of great music and great time periods of the best rock and roll.
But, entering my 60s, I can say without any doubt or hesitation that nothing gives me as much pleasure as listening to the deluge of awesomeness coming from all corners of the world.
Rock ‘n’ roll of the most feral brand has never been as global.
Japan’s Bahboon hit all the sweet and dirty notes that put their sound squarely in the genre.
Greece’s 1000mods surf a similar groove. They have been around much longer and, as such, are seen as one of the best live bands out there. Here’s proof.
Lambros, the drummer, I met in Toronto. He told me next time we meet we will do shots of Metaxa. In that sentence is an indirect hint as to what separates this scene from EVERY other one. It’s communal. It’s family. The delta between artists and fans is zero. You get to casually hang with band members. There’s no stupid VIP access–which plagues so many bands I grew up liking.
I will just put it here. I have zero interest in seeing Black Sabbath in Birmingham. Not my scene to sit in a stadium and watch big screens. It’s a great lineup of rock bands. Nobody can deny that. But you aren’t going to get anywhere near them. Not for the cliche reasons of getting autographs and what not, but simply to talk about music. To pay hundreds of dollars to see ageing millionaires backstage for 30 seconds interests me as much as going to the dentist.
Having earnest discussions–forming friendships–has never really been a part of rock culture. But it’s the lifeblood of this scene. That’s because there is no ego or competition in this scene, even as it gets bigger. Everyone is trying to lift each other.
It’s not just getting bigger. The quality of the music, for me at least, has never been better. That’s primarily because the genre of stoner/doom has widened as veteran and new bands experiment not only from a rich catalogue of its history since Kyuss but also some deep dives into sounds and artists from over fifty years that perhaps were left in the margins.
Like, who the fuck among the mainstream rock artists is going to the well of Robin Trower?
Well, Chicago’s Shadow Of Jupiter is, and they are mixing that heavy blues influence with ’90s alt-rock and contemporary sounds of today’s scene.
The past is irrelevant if that is where you were stuck. The present is irrelevant if you are illiterate about rock history–spanning all decades.
However, combining the two is the calling card of today’s scene that Kyuss birthed. There are few bands left that sound anything like Kyuss, but almost every band gives props–knowingly or not–into their style and swagger.
For the longest time, Kyuss was known as the greatest cult band ever. Given the enormity of the scene, it’s time to simply say that Kyuss was one of the greatest bands ever.
Again, as great as the music has been and is today, what catapults it into a realm that may never be matched is that deep bond in the community. And, given how this scene started, the familial bonds in 2025 make complete sense. The community was born because it had no culture.
“There was no culture in the desert, so we had to make our own culture.“Mario Lalli
Today’s culture is about family. And everyone is invited in this family. It is the most inclusive, warm, and inviting group I have ever experienced in my life. The heavier the music, the heavier seems to be the love that swirls around the fans and bands.
Merch tables are often sold out. Fans are often purchasing music directly from the artists or the myriad of labels that support the scene. More effort is to see bands on a weeknight. All this should alert you to the currency of everything that is happening.
Love, talent, historical knowledge, and insatiable curiosity for new bands and new sounds is propelling everyone into uncharted territory.
A new band which highlights the communion between so many different influences is CLEEN out of Flint, Michigan. Their debut album is a fuckin’ beast because it’s unforgiving in both melody and guitar heaviness. The influences range from ’80s Joy Division, Sonic Youth, and Tears For Fears to the Seattle heaviness of Soundgarden and Nirvana. But even that feels limiting once you hear the album in its entirety–several times.
There are literally dozens and dozens of amazing bands that deserve mention that are contributing to everything I have written.
I think the one that I would like to close with that symbolizes how the scene is stretching its own sound is Violet Rising from New Mexico.
You have the charismatic female singer Christi Danielle Sanchez crooning with the vibe of being in a hip, smokey lounge of ’60s Vegas. The song, however, is wonderfully suffocated by this omnipresent doom feel. Partner-in-crime Ricardo Sanchez is hitting those drums with stylistic flair and a bit of Keith Moon madness. The rest of the band works synchronously to match the sultry groove of the song.
Some people might not attach the label of “stoner” to the band. And that’s fine. But for me, that label has metamorphosed from a narrow band of heaviness to something that much wider, but all the while connected to the larger, expanding sound of the scene.
Mark my words, a great documentary will come out by the end of the decade, relaying all of this with sound and colour the likes of which the world has never seen. The best part is that there will be bands in that documentary which don’t even exist yet. That’s how fast the scene is spawning.
And yes, it is the greatest scene in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.
The best part is that rock journalists who pride themselves on being fluent in the past and present of rock music have missed the boat entirely. All that’s left for them to do is look dumb for not reporting on the kind of music they base their entire existence on.
For the rest of us, we are grateful to be alive in a time where freedom, freaks, and fuck off are back with a Batman vengeance.
