Orange Goblin have been a constant player on the British stoner scene for years, always gaining critical plaudits but never releasing the album that would propel them into the Mastodon league. Always solid, always enjoyable, but never mindblowing is how I think of them, and new album A Eulogy For The Damned (the band's seventh full-length) certainly lives up to that. A mixture of Monster Magnet-esque stoner rock and good ole-fashioned heavy metal, the band more than know their craft after seventeen years' rocking, and the songs presented here are uniformly excellent. A strong opener with Red Tide Rising is followed with the anthemic Stand For Something, gravel-voiced bellower Ben Ward enhancing rather than detracting from the melodic yet more-than-heavy metal beneath.

You can tell the band have songwriting skill from the variety on show, the old-school Mastodon melody of Acid Trial contrasting well with mosh-pit stompers like The Filthy And The Few. The slower, moodier Save Me From Myself is as catchy (if slightly repetitive) as the faster and more danceable The Fog, whilst Return To Mars manages to be both fun and interesting, space rock at its catchiest. Death Of Aquarius' groovy stomp is a riotous bit of Southern-rockin' that will please all but the most hardiest of ears, but it's the title track's prog-tinged voyage that impresses most and stays with you the longest.

Good songwriting, then, but A Eulogy For The Damned is less good when examined against Orange Goblin's back catalogue, and indeed when up against stoner rock in its wholedom. Solid albums full of killer songs that don't advance the genre one bit is what has crippled stoner into something of a one-trick pony, repeating the same tricks to please the same audience but lacking that killer bit of experimental oomph that would take things to the next level. Harsh, but fair? Well, in any case, if there is a next level then Orange Goblin can't be far off it with albums as good as this...