Requiem for the damned

For me, dressing up makes no sense at all. We're a meat-and-potatoes heavy metal band, simple and unpretentious. There are so many genres around nowadays, people have strange ideas about what heavy metal actually is. For me it's simply an attitude, a way of life, not something you decide to dive into. Either you are or you aren't. And it's for life

(Ben Ward)

We've never claimed to be anything more than pure fun. Every time we're on stage we're having a blast. I guess once you stop having fun it becomes a chore

(Martyn Millard)

As Orange Goblin enter their 30th year, we've made the collective decision that 2025 will be our last year. Maybe not forever, and who knows what the future holds. We feel we're leaving behind a very strong legacy, and of that, we're deeply proud

(Orange Goblin)

The Haunted Kingdom

London, 1995. The English capital is a melting pot on the verge of exploding, caught between rising social inequality and racial tension. Leading the nation is the Conservative John Major, in a difficult period of economic hardship and political scandal. While the recession unleashed at the start of the Nineties seems to be in full recovery, the so-called Cool Britannia drives the UK's creative rebirth. While the authorities crack down hard on the uncontrolled spread of hard drugs, bands like Oasis and Blur raise the flag of a youth culture in full ferment. Having lost the mainstream popularity it had gained in the 1980s with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM), the English metal scene thus takes on the role of an ideological counterweight: where Cool Britannia fashionably celebrates a modern, young, optimistic United Kingdom, metal retreats into nihilism and social critique.

Compared to the golden era of granite-hard bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, the hard-music movement is now more fragmented, having splintered into the most disparate subgenres, from black metal to doom, all the way to industrial. Compared to ravers or britpop fans, English metalheads go around in leather jackets, studs and big black boots, flaunting a rock'n'roll attitude that's an alternative to the status quo.

Not yet twenty, Ben Ward had spent years dreaming of playing professionally for Queens Park Rangers, before being struck by the voices of Lemmy Kilmister and Bruce Dickinson. "I discovered heavy metal, alcohol and drugs, so football got put on the back burner," he would later recall. Raised in a left-wing family, Ben is a tall, physically sturdy kid, devoted to all sorts of school sports, from basketball to cricket. After finishing high school, he spends a couple of years in QPR's youth team, considering the possibility of enrolling at university to study engineering. But then comes the wave of bands like Iron Maiden and Motörhead, which open the doors to an alternative life made of music, beer and drug-fuelled benders.

A contemporary of Ward's, guitarist Joe Hoare started playing blues as a teenager, smitten with the sacred monsters of the devil's music, above all Albert and B.B. King. From a casual strummer he grew into a skilled musician, opening up to seventies hard rock, from Led Zeppelin to Black Sabbath, which led him to the darkest fringes of heavy metal. Armed with his white SG Special, Hoare prefers simple gear, aiming for a clear, powerful sound without too many frills. It's a musical approach that naturally appeals to Ward, who is on the hunt for bandmates to form a group in the mid-1990s.

The big opportunity comes when Ward and Hoare get in touch with Reading bassist Martyn Millard, who is tied to a project called Our Haunted Kingdom. The band also features rhythm guitarist Pete O'Malley, while drummer Chris Turner joins as well, having decided to pursue a second career in music after starting his academic studies in astrophysics. The band begins rehearsing in a garage, dreaming of a record deal and a debut album. They play various venues on London's underground circuit, serving up a fusion of doom, psychedelia and scorching blues also known as stoner metal. Founded in California by seminal bands like Kyuss and Sleep, the stoner genre hardens the fabric of desert rock, so named probably after the title of the compilation "Burn One Up! Music for Stoners", released by Roadrunner Records. Often associated with cannabis use – Sleep, for instance, would smoke weed onstage during their American shows – stoner is naturally influenced by the slow, lumbering music of Black Sabbath, listened to on repeat until exhaustion by bands like Our Haunted Kingdom.

Rise Above Records is an independent label founded in 1988 thanks to funds guaranteed by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, an initiative launched by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government to support unemployed citizens in starting new businesses. The label's founder is Lee Robert Dorrian, who the previous year had joined grindcore band Napalm Death as vocalist and songwriter. While the band from Meriden was on the cover of NME and on mainstream TV, Dorrian could barely afford his rent, so he took advantage of the national funding to set up his own record label, initially intending to release bands from the hardcore punk scene. In the following years, however, he developed a burning obsession with doom, thanks to listening to bands like Candlemass and Trouble.

Dorrian thus launched his mission to spread the doom sound across the United Kingdom, reaching a turning point in 1996, when he pressed a split single called Electric Wizard/Our Haunted Kingdom. Founded by Dorset singer-guitarist Jus Oborn, Electric Wizard incorporate certain sludge elements into their stoner sound, devoted to dark themes like occultism and black magic. The track released by Rise Above is the Sabbath-esque "Demon Lung", awash in wah-wah roar and distortion, included on the Japanese edition of their self-titled 1994 debut album. The second track included is in fact Our Haunted Kingdom's debut, "Aquatic Fanatic", built on a round, almost boogie-ish riff, interspersed with more atmospheric guitar passages in a psych-rock vein.

Magic Carpet

Following the release of the "Aquatic Fanatic" single, Ward and co. decide to change the band's name, looking for something more evocative. They search for something that sounds more psychedelic and in line with the stoner/doom aesthetic, settling on the words Orange – a reference to the amplifiers often used for their distorted, powerful sound – and Goblin, evoking a fantasy imagery. In March 1996 they enter The Square Centre studios in Nottingham with producer Dave Chang, to record their debut album for Rise Above.

Frequencies From Planet Ten comes out on 1 October 1997, with cover art that looks like it's straight out of an "Alice in Wonderland" set on an alien planet. At its center looms a huge amplifier stack, as if to signal to the listener the intention of firing off a groove with no frills, direct and powerful. Partly inspired by Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings", the album immediately makes its direction clear, starting with the statement track "The Astral Project", a steaming cauldron of stoner groove, interludes between jazz and psychedelia, in a kind of spaced-out jam played at full tilt. The bassline that opens "Magic Carpet" leads the listener into a vibrant doom, torn open by Hendrix-style wah-wah guitar. "Saruman's Wish" carries the evil wizard into a claustrophobic universe ruled by a Sabbath-like riff driving a furious charge, complete with absurd barrelhouse keyboards played by additional member Duncan Gibbs. Orange Goblin drop in pure psychedelic interludes ("Song Of The Purple Mushroom Fish"), as if positioning themselves halfway between two seemingly irreconcilable universes. From the elvish forest of the acoustic watercolor "Lothlorian" we're whisked in a flash into the electric intro of "Land Of Secret Dreams", another stoner ride closer to the blues rhythms reflecting Hoare's influences. Ward's powerful, filtered voice is one of the album's central threads, as he effortlessly leads the rock-solid "Orange Goblin", another statement of a direct, no-frills approach, perhaps still a bit raw, but tremendously effective.

After the release of Frequencies From Planet Ten, Orange Goblin launch into intense live activity, forcing their way to the center of the English doom scene. Promoters linked to Rise Above Records book them alongside other label bands like Cathedral and Electric Wizard, in keeping with Lee Dorrian's goal of growing the whole movement in the UK. Music critics appreciate the band's energetic, carefree shows, played with a visceral feel amid light drugs and rivers of beer. Their early days are thus marked by a pub attitude, with zero professionalism and one hundred percent rock'n'roll messing about. Both Ward and Hoare work days in a canteen at London's Wembley Arena, while by night they let loose with their instruments and, above all, with alcohol, which often leaves the singer performing drunk. During one English date, he suddenly falls off the stage into the crowd, gashing one of his buttocks.

While the band tears it up live, winning over its first fans, American label Man's Ruin Records – founded three years earlier in San Francisco by graphic artist Frank Kozik – releases the EP Nuclear Guru, whose cover shows a distorted image of the notorious Japanese criminal Shōkō Asahara. The title track opens with an elegant, seventies-style fuzz, before accelerating into the stoner-doom groove that starts to define the English band's sound. It's followed by a cover of Black Sabbath's "Hand Of Doom", paying tribute to the godfathers of British heavy metal with just the right mix of fidelity and innovation.

In June 1998 Orange Goblin enter The Square Centre studios in Nottingham, again with producer Dave Chang, to record their second album, Time Travelling Blues. From the first roar of the Harley-Davidson looming on the cover, the hypnotic rhythm of "Blue Snow" feels carved out of granite, exploding into a stoner-doom perfect for headbanging. The band unleashes another colossal riff on "Solarisphere", while the organ intro of "Shine" recalls Deep Purple before weaving into a psych passage in the style of "Planet Caravan", closed out by a galloping riff. The band goes all in on the aggressive intensity of "The Man Who Invented Time" and the sheer speed of "Diesel", while again paying homage to Sabbath on the dark "Snail Hook".

The album proves more direct than the debut, leaning further into stoner rawness, carried by Ward's robust vocals. "Lunarville 7, Airlock 3" has a southern-rock feel, while the explosive closing title track is steeped in blues, a tribute to the electric progressions of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The King of Hornets

After the release of Time Travelling Blues, Orange Goblin kept up their relentless live activity, cementing the band's name on the English and European heavy-doom scene. The group won over new fans through powerful, chaotic live shows, awash in rivers of beer and long instrumental jams. Between tour dates spanning late 1998 and all of 1999, new songs were written in view of their third studio outing. A cover of "Freelance Fiend," a lumbering hard rock track by the English band Leaf Hound, ended up on the A-side of another split Ep, this time shared with American outfit Alabama Thunderpussy. It served as the prelude to the release of The Big Black, in May 2000, with new producer Billy Anderson.

For Ward and co., the time had come to get serious, setting aside the lysergic drift of the debut or the ironic, raw power of the second album. In a friendly rivalry with pioneering bands like Electric Wizard, Orange Goblin wanted to prove themselves the supreme princes of stoner-doom, delivering Rise Above Records a genuine must-have for fans of the genre. Opened by the explosive build of "Scorpionica," The Big Black allowed the English band to make a quantum leap into the uppermost strata of the heavy galaxy, with an impressive run of outstanding tracks. The stoner fury of "Quincy The Pigboy" and "Hot Magic, Red Planet" shows the maturity of a group that managed to move beyond its own founding idols, skillfully balancing the most aggressive rhythms with the most atmospheric ones, amid granite riffs and seventies-style fuzz. The spacy suite "Cozmo Bozo" rewrites Pink Floyd-esque tones in the language of heavy metal, while the riff of "298 kg" mirrors the heaviness of its title.

The group experiments for the first time with a more punk approach on "Turbo Effalunt (Elephant)," while "King Of The Hornets" unleashes a limping groove that bursts into speed on the bass line. From the technicality of the claustrophobic jam "You'll Never Get To The Moon In That" to the supersonic boogie of "Alcofuel," all the way to the mighty doom charge of the closing title track, The Big Black established Orange Goblin on the heavy scene at the turn of the millennium.

The band's live activity shifted into overdrive after the release of The Big Black, with long tours across Europe alongside bands like Goatsnake, Sunn O))), Dio and Alice Cooper. Orange Goblin had by now emerged from the underground scene, heading toward a broader reputation on a global scale, extending their live dates to the United States as well. Between late 2000 and early 2001, the stoner scene began a slow fade, following the end of the Monster Magnet project or the sonic transformation of Queens Of The Stone Age. Ward and his bandmates realized it was time to change approach, abandoning stoner-doom purism to evolve toward a faster, more vicious form of metal. Ironically produced by stoner veteran Scott Reeder, Coup De Grace is the watershed album that wrong-footed the band's fans, starting with its cover art in the classic horror-cartoon style of Rob Zombie. The oriental-tinged instrumental "Graviton" is effectively the last trace of the band's cosmic drift, a small gleaming stone set in a rock of vicious hard rock. From the fast-paced opener "Your World Will Hate This" to the granite riff of "Monkey Panic," Orange Goblin establish a new sonic order after five years of dark doom and stoner schemes.

The band now looks toward new stylistic horizons, speeding up the tempo in homage to the street punk of the Misfits, paid tribute to in a faithful cover of "We Bite." On the more solemn "Made Of Rats," John Garcia's voice (Kyuss) splendidly accompanies Ward's, an experiment repeated on the rough mix of hard rock and stoner that is "Jesus Beater."

Coup De Grace is thus the album that allowed the English band to expand beyond strictly metal territory, massively widening their fanbase across Europe and the United States. The rounded riff of "Getting High On The Bad Times" and the superb instrumental fury of "Range Of Angels" make for a lethal combo, proving how naturally the group can move from space-rock to doom, all the way to hard-stoner. Tracks like "Whiskey Leech" update American-style street bad songs, while the charging "Red Web" returns to Sabbath-like rhythms over a dark groove. Orange Goblin even succeed in modernizing southern-rock sound on tracks like "Born With Big Hands" and, above all, on the bluesy "Stinkin' O' Gin."

Tending The Fire

After the release of the jarring Coup de Grace, Orange Goblin went through a transitional phase, both artistically and personally. Pete O'Malley decided to leave the group to pursue other projects, parting ways with his bandmates on good terms. The band chose to carry on without replacing him, switching to a four-piece lineup with a single guitarist. This gave Ben Ward more creative space, allowing him to draw back on his early hard'n'heavy influences — Motörhead, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy — for a rawer, more direct musical style, moving ever further from the original mix of doom and stoner fuzz.

The new album, Thieving From The House Of God, came out in spring 2004, confirming that the band's future could look bright even without a second guitarist. Starting with the catchy chorus riding atop the sonic wall of "Some You Win, Some You Lose," the new Orange Goblin album continues down the road of direct, no-frills hard rock, as on the super-boogie "Hard Luck" or the melodic "Black Egg," featuring the soulful voice of Sarah Shanahan.

Some will turn up their noses, not least because tracks like the fuzzy "One Room, One Axe, One Outcome" can come across as completely forgettable. After the revolution of Coup de Grace, the English band carries on with a direct, straightforward sound in classic hard rock style, as on "You're Not The One (Who Can Save Rock N Roll)." But the new record seems to run on autopilot, avoiding any sharp swerve away from an aggressive, rough approach, as on the riff of "If It Ain't Broke, Break It" or on the Motörhead-esque "Lazy Mary." While "Round Up The Horses" reclaims the old Sabbath-like doom gait, the ZZ Top cover "Just Got Paid" blends blues textures with hard rock roar. Thieving From The House Of God is, all told, a decent effort, lacking any particular creative peaks after the excellent revolution of Coup de Grace, and clearly a victim of a creative process bordering on confusion, as shown by the over nine minutes of the closing "Crown Of Locusts," caught between heavy metal bursts and space-rock drift reminiscent of the English band's early days.

After the release of Thieving From The House Of God, Orange Goblin resumed their frenetic live activity, setting off on a coast-to-coast tour of the United States through the summer of 2004. They returned to Europe to play with Grand Magus and Witchcraft, before celebrating, on December 16, 2005, ten years of their career with a special show at London's Underworld, alongside guest bands such as Scissorfight and Blood Island Raiders. It was a quiet period on the recording front, with the English band not returning to the studio until late 2006, to record, together with producer Mark Daghorn, their first album of the Sanctuary era, their new label following their departure from Rise Above Records. Ben Ward even announced a kind of concept album, loosely inspired by the tragic pandemic known as the Black Death, which was wiped out in the United Kingdom partly thanks to the Great Fire of London, which killed off the infesting rats.

"It's the strongest material we've ever produced," the singer told the press, but Healing Through Fire suffers from the same problem as its predecessor. "Hot Knives And Open Sores," for example, speaks the language of metal with a distinctly stoner accent, certainly managing to carve out a middle ground, but without any particular weight to carry. Orange Goblin thus fall into a kind of sonic limbo, unable to make a bad record, yet unable to pin any medal of excellence to their chest either. There are certainly some fully successful moments, like "Beginners Guide To Suicide," which opens with a drowsy slide guitar before unfolding into swamp-blues, complete with harmonica, hard-doom blasts and guttural vocals. It's proof that Orange Goblin haven't lost their instrumental touch, despite the departure of second guitarist O'Malley.

The album kicks off in style with the commanding riff of the epic "The Ballad Of Solomon Eagle," featuring great work from Hoare on his instruments, while "Cities Of Frost" starts quietly before unleashing a granite stoner groove. Then, tracks like "The Ale House Braves" and "Hounds Ditch" seem to travel on low frequencies, lost between swirling, Zeppelin-tinged hard rock and hints of thrash. While the mighty riff of "Vagrant Stomp" ends up drowning in a pool of banality, the acoustic watercolor "Mortlake (Dead Water)" surprises the listener with its classicist style.

Back From The Abyss

After the release of Healing Through Fire, Orange Goblin continue their intense live activity across Europe and the United States, playing prestigious festivals such as Download and Damnation. In 2008 they sign a new record deal with Candlelight Records, the London label founded in 1993 by Extreme Noise Terror bassist Lee Barrett. This is meant to be the prelude to a new album, with the band confirming they had completed two songs by spring 2009. While Rise Above Records works on digital reissues of the group's early albums, Ward and co. tell the trade press of "complications" and "unforeseen circumstances" that have effectively stalled the songwriting process. Between outside jobs, families to support, and above all the search for the best version of themselves, Orange Goblin thus remain out of the spotlight on record for years, focusing solely on live performances.

Fans have to wait until early 2012, roughly five years after the band's last studio effort, for the release of A Eulogy For The Damned. The wait pays off for the band's followers, who have given them all the time needed to refine their sound and patch up the flaws of their previous releases. From the furious heavy metal riff of "Red Tide Rising", the album marks a grand return, thanks to sturdy, well-crafted tracks like the rubbery "The Filthy & The Few", in the style of Fu Manchu. The group floors the accelerator with the apocalyptic pace of "Death Of Aquarius", while "Stand For Something" offers an enveloping groove that lowers by a couple of notches the classic Motörhead sound, still one of Ward and co.'s major influences.

"Acid Trial" explodes on its pachydermic, guttural groove, while "Save Me From Myself" suddenly swerves into a delightful Lynyrd Skynyrd-style southern blues. The band returns to old-school doom-stoner on the atmospheric "The Fog", with "Return To Mars" evoking Zeppelin-esque urges. While tracks like "The Bishops Wolf" race along at extremely high heavy metal speeds, the closing title track opens with an electro-acoustic arrangement with a grunge flavor, before igniting into a whirlwind of guitars reminiscent of the nineties. It's not an album that reinvents the sonic wheel, but Orange Goblin return after years sounding fitter than ever.

Critical support and fan appreciation for A Eulogy For The Damned lead Orange Goblin to embark on a massive tour of over 150 shows in nearly 30 countries around the world. From their performances at the Bloodstock and Hellfest festivals comes their first live album, A Eulogy For The Fans: Orange Goblin Live 2012, also released on DVD. The album captures the full power of the band on stage, from the latest 2012 tracks to classic material like "Time Travelling Blues" and "Quincy The Pigboy".

Back on track after the long recording hiatus, Orange Goblin waste no time and in 2014 release their next album, Back From The Abyss, opened by the tribute "Sabbath Hex", which revives the hard, dark sound that gave rise to the entire heavy movement. The group keeps treading Motörhead's scorching path on the furious "The Devil's Whip", while "Demon Blues" unleashes a rock midtempo reminiscent of certain Bad Company tracks. The lengthy "Heavy Lies The Crown" returns to a seventies sound, blending hard-blues with Hendrix-like flourishes, just as "Into The Arms Of Morpheus" once again revives the sound of Ozzy and co. with an implacable doom.

The album, however, ends up being slightly repetitive, still riding the derivative speed of "Bloodzilla", followed by filler instrumental interludes like "Titan" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". A work that leaves the listener with the same old doubts, facing a band incapable of making bad music, but once again tangled up in excessive length and nostalgia for times gone by.

The bite of the wolf

During 2015 Orange Goblin embark on a short UK tour to celebrate twenty years of their career, continuing to play live non-stop until 2017, when a charity concert is held in Camden Town, London, to raise funds for the employees of music publisher TeamRock, who found themselves in serious financial trouble after the company's collapse. It is Ben Ward himself who spearheads a charity project via the online platform JustGiving, landing in the pages of major national newspapers and magazines.

The band takes another break from recording, releasing The Wolf Bites Back only in 2018, with Ghost producer Jaime "Gomez" Arellano. The group tells the trade press beforehand that it's an album conceived live, recorded with the intention of capturing the raw, powerful spirit of their acclaimed shows around the world. And indeed it kicks off with the thunderous sludge rhythm of "Sons Of Salem", while the title track opens with a delicate acoustic arpeggio before exploding into hard'n'heavy low end. The heavy power of "Renegade" still carries the flavor of the Motörhead standard, as has often happened in the second half of the English band's discography, which once again brings back doom on the following "Swords Of Fire". On "Ghosts Of The Primitives" the register suddenly shifts toward kraut-progressive territory, fading into the atmospheric, slightly psych instrumental "In Bocca Al Lupo".

The variations on the theme are, as usual, interesting and well executed, but tracks like "Suicide Division" now betray a certain compositional fatigue. "The Stranger" gives in to a sleepy blues, promptly kicked up into stoner gear, with "Burn The Ships" once again echoing their beloved Black Sabbath. Closing the album is the epic, big-riffing stride of "Zeitgeist", which nonetheless fails to save The Wolf Bites Back from a few too many yawns.

At the end of 2020 bassist Martyn Millard announces his retirement from the band, while their second live album, Rough & Ready, Live & Loud, is released. The album unleashes the band's power on stage, with the welcome return of the psychedelic stoner of "Saruman's Wish". During 2021, after the forced stop caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the band recruits bassist Harry Armstrong to return to touring. Six years after The Wolf Bites Back, the new album Science, Not Fiction is released, out in summer 2024 on Peaceville. Having adopted a healthier lifestyle, Ben Ward speaks publicly of an album that will tackle serious, weighty themes, touching on religion, science and spirituality. The Sabbath-like groove of "The Fire At The Center Of The Earth Is Mine" is this time polished to a shine, unleashing renewed sonic urgency, including in Ward's commanding vocals.

The core reference points obviously haven't changed, from the supersonic hard-boogie of "(Not) Rocket Science" – halfway between Motörhead and Kyuss – to the hypnotic stoner of their origins on "Ascend The Negative". But the new approach in the recording studio, after the purely live dimension of The Wolf Bites Back, is more considered, chiseled into every groove. The result is a notable album, among the best Orange Goblin have ever made, capable of turning the hard-blues of "False Hope Diet" into a whirlwind of prog and psychedelia. All of it relying on their never-in-doubt technical skill, in service of more than successful tracks, from the demonic biker-song "Cemetary Rats" to the punk veins of "The Fury Of A Patient Man". Science, Not Fiction contains the full essence of the English band, who inevitably choose one last doom trip on "End Of Transmission", a track whose title proves more than prophetic.

Orange Goblin in fact announce to the world their painful decision to leave the scene after thirty years of career, at the end of their final tour, which closes on December 17, 2025 at the O2 Kentish Town Forum in London.

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