Los Angeles has never been short on heavy music, but for more than a decade Early Moods have stood out as one of the city’s most devoted torchbearers of the doom metal and psychedelic metal tradition. Drawing from the classic foundations laid by Candlemass, Pentagram, Black Sabbath, and Witchfinder General, the band’s members originally cut their teeth in local thrash and death metal outfits before embracing the darker, slower, and more atmospheric spirit of the ‘70s and ‘80s underground.
The lineup features guitarist and founder Eddie Andrade, vocalist/keyboardist Alberto Alcaraz, lead guitarist Oscar Hernandez, drummer Chris Flores, and bassist Elix Feliciano. Their journey began with the 2020 EP Spellbound, followed by their self‑titled 2022 debut and 2024’s A Sinner’s Past, records that established them as one of the most promising modern voices in traditional doom.
Now, in 2026, Early Moods return with their third studio album, Ready for the Grave, released through RidingEasy Records. It’s a record that wastes no time announcing its intentions: loud, heavy, psychedelic, and unapologetically steeped in the metallic gloom that shaped the genre’s earliest days.
You can practically close your eyes and imagine flipping through a vintage record collection, Vertigo swirls, Noise Records spines, Megaforce grit, Neat Records rawness, Metal Blade classics, and finding Ready for the Grave sitting comfortably among them. Early Moods channel that era so convincingly that it feels like they’ve dragged the mid‑1980s back into the present, burying any trace of glossy hair‑metal excess beneath a mountain of riffs.
With producer Toshi Kasai (known for his work with Melvins and Tool) behind the board, the band sound massive. Kasai gives them room to stretch out, experiment, and lean fully into their strengths. As HUNTR/X from KPOP Demon Hunters might say: Early Moods show the mainstream exactly how it’s done, done, done!
The opening title-track sets the tone immediately. Sludgy grooves, Iommi‑esque riffing, pounding bass, and Alberto’s soaring vocals, evoking Messiah Marcolin’s Nightfall era, create a gut‑punch of a beginning. A brief mid‑section nod to The Doors’ ‘Wild Child’ adds a psychedelic twist before the band dives back into their doom‑laden assault.
‘Inquisition’ follows with a thick Master of Reality‑style stomp, complete with a tongue‑in‑cheek Monty Python reference. The track swings between menace and momentum, building toward a feverish, blood‑pumping climax. ‘Thy Eternal Grief’ shifts gears, opening with a mournful acoustic passage reminiscent of the softer moments on Abbey Road. After nearly a minute of calm, the band erupts into an ‘80s‑styled gallop, tearing forward like a bat out of hell.
‘The Prowler’ is one of the album’s most surprising detours. Alberto channels the theatrical intensity of Peter Hammill and early Van der Graaf Generator, delivering a performance that feels like a psychological unraveling set to doom‑laden prog. It’s bold, strange, and jaw‑dropping.
‘When Light Fades’ opens with a slasher‑film flourish straight out of late‑‘70s/early‑‘80s Giallo cinema, think Demons (1985), before dissolving into a Floydian haze reminiscent of Live at Pompeii. It’s eerie, atmospheric, and beautifully executed. ‘Her Wicked Spells’ feels like a battle sequence from Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards brought to life through rumbling guitars and apocalyptic tension. The band’s ability to merge fantasy, horror, and metal imagery is one of their greatest strengths, and this track showcases it perfectly.
The album closes with the seven‑minute epic ‘Ashes of the Damned’, a dark, orchestral, and cinematic finale. It conjures visions of undead hordes overtaking a city, more Romero and Giallo than Walking Dead, while weaving in shades of Van der Graaf Generator’s ‘Killer.’ The climactic guitar work leads into a surreal, almost Kubrick‑like sequence that feels ripped from the stargate scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ready for the Grave plays like a horror film unfolding inside your mind, equal parts doom, psychedelia, and slasher‑era grit. It’s brutal, immersive, and proudly noncommercial. Early Moods aren’t here to soften their sound or slip in a Disney‑style ‘I Want’ song. They’re here to deliver the real thing.
And they do.
