New Zealand. It's as far south as you can get before walking in on a penguin orgy. We're often left off world maps. We're only slightly more well known than old Zealand (technically Zeeland). And that's mostly because we made a bunch of Hobbit movies down here.

We are the Canada to Australia's America; friendly, low-key, and yes, sheep outnumber humans around here. There are two things New Zealand does well though: horror movies and heavy music. Maybe it's the climate, or perhaps it's the isolation, we'll probably never know because scientists are working on more important things. It could be the excellent cannabis we grow, or the very magic mushrooms that crop up around our scenic vistas, but for a country with only 4.7 million people, we have a surprising number of heavy bands.

The first time I noticed New Zealand had any stoner bands was when I was on a weekly trip to my local record store. Flicking through the CDs, looking for the Mans Ruin logo, I found an album called Magnetise, by a band called Datura. That album’s artwork, the band’s name, and its location on the shelves sparked my interest, and the inlay card said Datura were from Hamilton, New Zealand! Magnetise took up residency in my Discman (yep, this was back in the late 90s), and it remained there for a long, long time.

New Zealand already had punk, hardcore, and metal scenes back then, but that album gave me hope that a stoner scene could be on the cards for our skinny little nation. Datura disbanded, but they grew into the mighty Arc of Ascent, and Beastwars picked up the ball and ran with it too (that's a rugby analogy... we also like rugby here too). Now we have a bunch of great New Zealand doom and stoner bands, so enjoy this sampling of what our country has to offer. If you like what you hear, please consider supporting the groups on their Bandcamp pages.

Doug from Bloodnut