Maha Sohona - A Dark Place (2025)

From the northern lights of Umeå, Sweden comes Maha Sohona, a band who takes their name from a demon in Sri Lankan folklore and fittingly plays organic Scandinavian stoner-rock laced with psychedelic undertones. It’s a band that has built quite a cult following, especially among the doom and stoner crowds.

A Dark Place is not an album that aims to explore and innovate too much, but rather stays firmly within the grips of genre conventions. For some that might be a turn-off, for others that is a relief, who don’t want their stoner-rock any other way than they are used to. If you liked the band’s previous material or are a big fan of the genre, then it’s easy; you are gonna like A Dark Place. It’s absolute comfort food for fans of the genre, but I don’t think this will pull that many listeners from outside of that cult fanbase.

You can expect crushing riffs and hypnotic grooves, and a whole lot of fuzzy guitars. The album has a very meditative feel to it, it’s almost like heavy metal yoga, you kind of float away and drift off into space while listening to this – and yet the music is heavy and has that foundation of slower to mid-tempo Sabbath style riffs. The clarity of the instruments are fantastic and a nice contrast to the fuzzy guitars that adds some grit to the sound

Surprisingly, the highlight of the album for me is the quiet and mellow track, Ostera. This track looks much more inward, and it feels much more intimate than the other more spacey tracks of the album. You also get the single Visions, which has this wonderful part mid-way through where they step on every single fuzz-pedal until they almost sound like old Lowrider.

It’s hard to give a definitive statement on an album such as this, as Maha Sohona does one thing, and they do that one thing really well. While personally I would love a bit more playfulness or personality, I also know that if I were to review this album a few years ago when I was getting deep into stoner-rock, then this could probably have been one of my favorite albums of the year. While I may have moved a bit on from this, Moha Sohona has stayed behind and continues to provide the world with stellar music they just love playing, and there is something beautiful about that. I will always know I can come back to these guys to get that nice fuzzy feeling whenever I want it.