Oftentimes, the best thing one can do is simply stay the course. After all, if something isn’t broke, why try to fix it? It’s a concept that many throughout the underground struggle to come to terms with for one reason or another, and it’s only on occasion do we find a band that is able to realize such a decision to remain in a particular lane is the best course of action while continuing to make that path worth. It’s deceptively tricky to pull off if you don’t approach it from the right angle. Within the vast depths of their third album, Ocultum shows us how it’s done with their brand of stoner doom that is everything the sound can still be while adhering to all the core ideals that have always defined the sound.

Even though Ocultum finds itself treading over much of the same ground here as it has throughout its previous two albums, it demands to be made clear that “Bueana Muerte” is not a repeat creation of the truest sort as this album expands the breadth of its repertoire to show us what it can still do. Throughout the five tracks of this smoke-wreathed slab of heaviness, the whole of stoner doom is given extreme justice in every possible form to make Ocultum an act that demands respect in the sound for what it accomplishes alongside the themes of death that permeate the absolute entirety of the record. A patient but nonetheless harrowing experience that sees a trippy sense of extinction overwhelm the listener in a way that other styles can never really tap into on such an intimate and intoxicating level, “Buena Muerte” grabs you by the throat and never once lets go under you see all there is to know of the other side with that end-goal well beyond the point of return. Ocultum doesn’t seek to reinvent the wheel during this performance. Rather, it feels as though they sought to make the most impactful ride with the long-established vessel that one could ask for, and I dare not claim that they haven’t achieved great things during this ride. Dark, immense, hypnotic, and nothing short of unyielding in its sublime bloodlust, “Buena Muerte” is the single work anyone should need to know that the world of stoner doom still has much longer to go before it dies.

Not often enough is stoner doom given the credit and space that it rightfully deserves. Only from exceptional acts like Ocultum is it given all that the sound needs in order to become a real tour de force of what it can be in the best of circumstances with this album giving us that and much more. From its riffs to its themes to its impenetrable smoke, “Buena Muerte” has much to uncover within its depths should one simply traverse over the threshold.

“Buena Muerte” releases on February 28th via Heavy Psych Sounds!

LISTEN to advanced tracks from “Buena Muerte” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Ocultum on Facebook here.