Review by Sonny for Alunah - Strange Machine (2022)

I have always been a big adherent of the pagan/witchy psych/stoner female-fronted doom scene to which Alunah are a major contributor, but even I am getting a little bit weary of the same old tropes being trotted out and lazily passed off as new material. It is coming up to a decade now since the best material in this genre was released, Windhand's Soma, Blood Ceremony's The Eldritch Dark and Alunah's own White Hoarhound all being prime examples and all approaching ten years old.

Strange Machine very much sounds like a band "dialling it in" and very few tracks remain in the memory for long after the album is finished. Sure, it is technically pretty good, but it is just lacking in any bite whatsoever and worst of all, it just isn't heavy enough. This is why I rave so much about bands like Messa and Subrosa, bands who are doing something else with the female-fronted doom sound rather than just trotting out the same old cliches which have been done to death.