There's something rather perverse in listening to an album as summery and blissful as this in the depths of winter, when the UK is laid quivering under a blanket of snow that's practically a reflection of the whitewashed sky. On the other hand, if you hate the diabolical frozen water as much as I do, then Stoner Rock is a joyous escape come this time of year, and what better occasion than now to turn to Welsh druggies Acrimony and their 1996 mini-masterpiece that is Tumali Shroomaroom? This was re-released by Leaf Hound in 2007, and is well worth tracking down for fans of aural psychedelics, hardly doing anything original with the genre but doing what they do pretty damn well.

Their passion is clear; from the opening nine-minute Hymns To The Stone, a Cathedral-esque invocatory stomp through Celtic woods and Druidic rituals, the album walks a varied path but stays satisfyingly close to the Doom source. It's hard to fault the songwriting, the laid-back vibe of Million Year Summer alone being better than anything most Doom bands manage to put together - every song has its own killer riffs, its own vocal hook, and of course the musicians themselves are on fire, churning out droning exuberance with glee. Vocalist Dorian is excellent, sounding half-baked without losing clarity and contributing just enough vocals to the likes of The Bud Song to enhance them without spoiling the music, with plenty of Lee Dorrian-esque 'yeah!'s.

It's the stoner vibe that runs through all of the tracks here that's the ultimate draw, however, the sense of obligation that drips steadily on you throughout. The best Stoner Rock almost forces you to take a lazy sit and partake of illicit substances, and Acrimony have that in spades. Really, if you're not slow-dancing around the room partway through the album then this isn't your sort of music; Acrimony sound like they were born in the seventies and have been rocking out ever since, the prog-tinged psychedelia that Motherslug (The Mother Of All Slugs) shoots the listener off into space on an especially nice touch. I love that the band decided to finish the album off with three songs over nine minutes long each, the truly heavy Heavy Feather and Firedance's album-finishing grandiosity - fine, by then you've been listening to the album for nearly an hour and Dorian's 'oh yeah!'s can begin to grate a little, but it's impossible to deny just how solid an album Tumali Shroomaroom is... one that should proudly occupy many a Stoner's shelfspace.