DÖ are a three-piece Doom Metal band from Helsinki, Finland. They've been active since 2013 and have released two full-length records along with three EPs. Their most recent effort, "Astral Death Cult", was released on September 20th and contains 6 tracks.

The album opens with an extended intro track titled "Intergalacticlude". Intro tracks are a fickle thing. I understand why some bands feel them to be necessary but often times they bloat the album. This one stands out with some cool, spacy instrumentals with KYUSS-like vibes and some deep-voiced spoken-word part at the end. It's a nice introduction to a record that is as experimental as it gets. The next track, "Atmosfear", which in addition to being a nice play on words, is also a fantastic opening track. The Doom-laden tones of the song set the stage for the record. It has some heavy bass lines from Deaf Hank with the rest of the band dropping in fully at around the 1:45 mark. The vocals stand out as prime Death Doom at its finest.

The next track on the record, "Drifting (In A Methane Ocean)", starts off with a really cool sludgy bass solo. The opening is reminiscent of SLEEP with a gliding guitar solo over the top of a slowed down drumbeat. A little into two minutes of the song, the vocals join in. Unlike the previous song, we can hear clean vocals that sound as if they're passed through a killer flanger. It's a cool idea, but ultimately I feel this effect could've been used on a different track. The song is the longest on the record coming in at over nine minutes long, and during that nine minutes we're exposed to a variety of different styles changing frequently.

The last song on the record sticks out as the highlight. "Beyond the Cosmic Horizon" brings the album to a close with a six minute, Stoner Metal epic. The song drives with fuzzy bass and raspy vocals that work together beautifully.

Overall, I enjoyed this album quite a bit. It's a compilation of innovative tones that work perfectly within the Stoner-Doom Metal genre. Production wise, the album sounds great in terms of layering and mixing but I did notice some clipping in several songs. The album made me a fan of the band and I'm looking forward to seeing what these guys do next.