BLACK LUNG are a Psychedelic Doom Metal band from Baltimore USA. They were formed in 2014 and Dark Waves is their 4^th album released on HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Records. It's an apt description as the album blends SABBATHy riffs, KYUSS groove and QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE psychedelica. If that sounds like your thing, then you'll enjoy the experience. It starts off with "Demons" where throbbing guitar and bass and punchy drums bring a doomy heaviness to proceedings. The production is very good and the vocals are decent. The music reminded me of the aforementioned QOTSA due to the low bottom end fuzzy bass and guitar. There's some wailing leads which reminded me of TOOL and it's probably my favourite track on the album though "The Cog" comes close with its slow dark blues riff and scratchy lead guitar.

That isn't to say it goes downhill from here though there's a familiarity to the tracks. Take "Awaken" for example. At nearly seven minutes, it's a long track. Some nice lead guitar adds atmosphere and the vocals echo between rumbling doomy riffs. A fuzzy dirty phaser guitar riff plays out towards the end of the track. The track didn't particularly excite me though there is some variety in the guitar playing. "Hollow Dreams" has a similar song structure though does add dual vocals for variety and there's a nice groove to the track. It did sound a bit similar though after the previous track. "Death Grip" adds a female vocal which leads to a different dynamic though with a doomy fuzzy riff like the previous tracks, it does tend to sound one-paced.

The last tracks "The Path" and "Mad King" both however redeem themselves by having a faster pace partway through the tracks. However by this point, it needed to. The latter particularly has a very slow SABBATHy riff though the faster edge was a welcome relief. To be fair, this is the first Psychedelic Doom Metal band I've reviewed and it's a decent album though the songs didn't really warrant a further listen after listening to it twice. The production is good though the vocals were a bit distant sounding on some of the tracks, making it difficult to hear the lyrics. The one paced nature did lead this to becoming a bit laborious to listen to. Although I've not really listened to a lot of this type of music, you either 'feel it' or you don't and apart from a couple of tracks, I didn't.