Green Meteor is an exciting new stoner rock band based out of Philadelphia. But, therein, lies the kicker. Yes, their debut album Consumed by a Dying Sun does bear the hallmarks of thee holee stoner metal album. There beith low, rumbling riffage. There beith that exact level of feedback fuzz so the album crackles with every note. There beith tribalish, clomping drums that make the album feel like it is Swamp Thing, stomping through the swamp. But, that is not all there beith.

For one thing, whereas many stoner/doom albums get lost in the murk of doom, ragging themselves down in an interminable lag that sacrifices energy for ambiance (that often wears thin) Green Meteor revel in the joy of the process. But, more importantly, they don’t seem to feel as though they feel beholden to doom.

Opening number, the wonderfully cosmically titled “Acute Emerald Elevation,” is appropriately named. As vocalist Leta calls out like some interstellar oracle, spaceship whirls flutter from speaker to speaker, employing Hawkwindian strikes as much as Sleepish homage. As the band rides whomping riffs upwards, the band focuses on the joy of raw power more than it does on any put upon macabre patina.

That’s not to say that the album is strictly fun for the sake of fun. It’s just that the band seems to daringly make doom metal a positive thing, rather than a lapse into despair. The title track, which starts out with a high energy charge before snapping into Lemmy’s trademark sprint, might be a muscular rush, but perhaps it is contemplating something deeper than “huh huh riffs are cool.” Like many thunderors before them, Green Meteor are contemplating mortality and existence- is everything we do futile- but they seem to do it with a sense of joy, that is not only refreshing within the genres the band straddles, but dare I say, enlightening?