“Humulus” is a member of the family Cannabaceae—and while that may sound suspiciously like cannabis, it isn’t. It’s a type of hop primarily used for brewing beer. So call it adjacent. It’s also a cool name for a Stoner Psych Rock band, though maybe it’s more appropriate for a Viking Metal band. HUMULUS hails from Bergamo, Italy. On September 1, 2023 they released their fourth studio album, “Flowers of Death,” on Go Down Records. It’s trippy, it’s explorative, it’s fairly good.

If you follow HUMULUS you are probably a bit dizzy from all the lineup changes. This time around Thomas Mascheroni joins the band on guitar and vocals. Also featured on the album, though not part of the official lineup, are Stefan Koglek from COLOUR HAZE who plays guitar on “Seventh Sun” and Elia Piana who provides keys and synths.

The album is seven tracks long and ventures out just past the 43-minute mark. If you do the math, that makes for some longish tracks—hence the ‘explorative’ remark. There’s a bit of jam-band vibe to HUMULUS. They like to slow it down and just chill sometimes, playing with this phrasing, studying that motif, stretching and testing those movements over there. As a trio they have a tight rhythm section, with each instrument chatting with jazzy improvisation. Thomas’s vocals are clean, the riffs fuzzy, the bass lines roving, the tempo unexpected but always on time, and the lead solos thread through it all like an ethereal snake.  

The entire album is fairly steady with a few ups and downs. “Seventh Sun” goes way mellow but picks up at the midpoint; “Flowers of Death” is the heaviest and liveliest of the tracks though I would accept a strong argument for “Secret Room”; “Shimmer Haze” gets its Doom on; and the balance of tracks are fuzzed out cosmic psych. “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth,” the final track, gives us a great send off with the last two minutes—a galloping run which levels into the perfect Stoner grove. Great way to end the album.

Hats off to Thomas Greenwood for the cover art which gives a sinister nudge to the project and is totally befitting the album title. The production work is also very good, so my other hat off to Giovanni Bottoglia at IndieBox Music Hall, Brescia, Italy for the engineering, mixing, and mastering.

There’s a ton of Stoner Psych, Stoner Doom, just plain Stoner out there. I’m not sure HUMULUS distinguishes amongst the known suspects in the psychedelic identity parade, but then again, it’s a good tribe to hang with. It may be winter in half the world, but the desert beckons and “Flowers of Death” are in full bloom.