Critic's Choice

Led Zeppelin had "The Battle of Evermore." Rush had "Rivendell." Since time immemorial, rock bands have made music based on the wizardly works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Now Denver's Turambar is joining that hall of heroes with its self-titled debut disc (to be released Friday, November 26, at the Larimer Lounge, where the band will ride alongside Weedeater and Jumbo's Killcrane). Forged in 2002 from shards of local heavy-hitters Blackened Goat Tongue, Vile Rune and Black Lamb, the quartet sought out Tolkien's Silmarillion for inspiration, naming itself after the book's dragon-slaying swordsman, Turin Turambar. In Elvish, the name means "master of doom" -- a description that the band easily lives up to. More brutal and crushing than a phalanx of Orcs, the new album marauds across the genres of proto-metal and stoner rock, packing the apocalyptic psychedelia of Lemmy-era Hawkwind into the saga-length sludge slides of Sleep and Black Sabbath. Loud. Slow. Heavy. Mind-bending. Don your chain mail and strap on your wine goblet: Turambar is about to get all Middle Earth on your ass.