Okay, there's BLACK RAINBOW, BLACK SPELL, BLACKWÜLF, BLACK MOTH, BLACK LAB, BLACKBRIAR so why wouldn't there be BLACK LUNG? Of course, I skipped the most obvious, BLACK SABBATH, but I'm trying to give the metal underground some love. Also, there is the Zoolander reference which no one seems to remember except me, but since I'm writing this review I'll toss it in. But anyway, BLACK LUNG is a Psychedelic Doom Metal band out of Baltimore, home of Poe and that one baseball team. BLACK LUNG formed over a decade ago and have five full-length albums to their credit, including their most recent, "Forever Beyond" released on March 6, 2026 via Magnetic Eye Records.

Question: How can a psych doom metal band this good get five albums out without me, and maybe you, noticing? Answer: Because the metal underground is f*cking huge. And also, relax. We don't have to be the first to discover everything. The world goes on. Just be glad we found them at all.

So, here we are. "Forever Beyond" comprises seven tracks and spans a good 35 minutes. BLACK LUNG does more of a cosmic psych thing than desert or sludge. Very fuzzy but more as a matter of reverb and echo than funky or groovy. Does any of that help? Clean vocals, of course, a bit nasally and ethereal. Note that I am doing everything I can to say not Ozzy-esque . . . so there you have it. If you told me they were from Sweden, I wouldn't be surprised. But they're not. Like I said, they're from Boston. Not sure if that accounts for the weird Swedish-like accent the vocalist has, but either way it is intriguing—makes you want to real close to try to work out the inflections and such.

The guitar work can get heavy at times, and the solos are spot on. Somewhat explorative but also well-grounded with a twin guitar attack—one to keep a foot on base, the other to wander about a bit. I keep seeing references to them as a trio, but there are clearly four members, so I'm not sure what all that is about and I can't be bothered to research it. Let's just stay in the now. A quartet.

Thematically, I don't know: Death, space, maybe some socio-politico stuff. I mean, "Border Horder" is a bit suggestive of some current events, but who knows? Could be a reference to coloring books or personal boundaries. Cover art could have used a bit more effort . . . but even that reaction fits in with the image of the slouched over astronaut . . . or is it just an empty suit . . . which, now that I think about it, would actually underscore a theme of apathy and vacuity. So maybe I got it wrong and the album cover is genius. Thank god I'm not being paid for this.

Standout tracks in my book are "Savior" because it's just so spacy and reminds me of writers like Stanislaw Lem and Philip K Dick; "Follow" because of the heavy ass riff and, you know, it's all about the riff; and "Scum" because . . . well, just listen to it, the track just rocks.

If you're like me and are just discovering this band, it's kind of a blessing and a curse. Blessing: Great band; great album. Curse: Guess who's buying four more albums. Sigh. The things I do for metal.