The music of MEGALITH LEVITATION sounds exactly as the moniker describes: Heavy down-tuned riffs with the gravitational pull of an event horizon paradoxically coupled with the lightness of cosmic psychedelics. Huh? Allow me to explain . . .

First the basics, MEGALITH LEVITATION is a Doom Metal trio out of Chelyabinsk, Russia. Chelyabinsk is a city in west-central Russia, close to the Ural Mountains. The city is famous for making a whole other type of heavy metal-tanks. Since the band's inception in 2016, they have released one split and three full-lengths. Their latest album, "Obscure Fire," was issued on March 31, 2023 via Aesthetic Death Records. Surprisingly, the band hasn't had a single lineup change since they got together. Very impressive, keeping in mind that one Metal band year is like seven light years to mere mortals. I mention this because of the band's tightness. You get a lot of this with trios, but there is an internal fluidity between SAA's guitar work, KKV and PAN's rhythm, and SAA's vocals. The vocals, btw, are clean and can be characterized as 'ethereal echo chamber.'

"Obscure Fire" is a meditative Doom trek through the icy expanse of the abyss. It has the tonality and tempo of Doom balanced with the fuzzy mind space of Stoner. With only five tracks it is a deceptively hefty album weighing in at over 42 minutes. Yeah, do the math, some lengthy tracks there, though "Descending" (track three) is an anomaly at two and half minutes. Probably not an album you want to do cardio to.

On a side note, the cover art is by Russian artist GodLikeIkons who has done all the band's covers. This particular one is a meshing of images and impressions from either the album tracks or a really bad mushroom trip. It's all rendered in black and white, like a page from an epic Psych Doom coloring book. Great stuff.

Best tracks are always debatable, but I'll go with the title track, "Obscure Fire," for its melodic flourishes and the bottomless breaks and "Of Silence" for its churning riffs which build to tidal proportions before deconstructing down to its constituent elements. Hardcore Doom fans will be drawn more toward "Descending" and "Of Eternal Doom." I guess that only leaves "Into the Depths." Excellent track reminiscent of a Lovecraftian underwater city. And I guess hydrostatic pressure is similar in effect to gravitational pull, incomprehensibly heavy.

Lyrically, the first two tracks read like Vedic mantras while the final two tracks read more like missing chapters to Robert W. Chamber's "The King in Yellow." The third track, while also meditative, acts like a segue or interlude bridging between the trippy invocations for tracks one and two and the brooding narratives of tracks four and five. As noted earlier, there is always a fine balance with this band.

And that pretty much sums up MEGALITH LEVITATION, incomprehensively heavy tunage paired with morosely kaleidoscopic lyrics. Go and get you some. And also some back-up woofers and subwoofers-you're going to be needing those too.