Andertons have just recently landed 7 of the 13 Does it Doom? pedal range. Per their moniker - these are mostly higher gain stoner, doom and sludge varieties - including a couple that lean intro Black Sabbath tones.

Andertons are still quite adventurous in seeking out new pedal brans - and it’s good to see them give so many brands a fair shake.

I’ve not fully processed this series yet to decide which ones are priorities for me - while a cursory glance would indicate that there are ...

’These Go To 11’ is one of the select Dealers whose site I regularly check out each and every week, and where I first encountered DanDrive pedals in late 2018, before connecting directly with Dan Querner himself in early 2019. I had a number of dialogues with Dan at the time, while he made me edit most of the interesting details out of that article - both his background and career, and his methodology, and unique way with electronics. Nearly all the salient details got removed - and we ended up...

This is a fantastic departure from Klowra’s usual DSP roots. Here we have their first entirely analog all-THT components circuit - and it sounds absolutely killer! In one of the pictures below you can see the high quality internals of this pedal - which deliver the most richly harmonically textured Overdrive, Fuzz and Distoriton tones. This pedal is fun for weeks if not months - it has such a high potential. And is one of the most versatile multi-gain pedals of all time - alongside my long-term...

It took me a few years to pick up this full set of 4 - where each of these is a revelation - they all deliver more than you might initially think, and they do it in such a clever way. Each one of these is far greater than the sum of its parts - and all those parts are high quality THT components.

My only tiniest niggle here is that I feel the Grimalkin could do with a little more output volume, while all of these sound amazing, and are all super versatile.

We essentially have 2 fuzzes ...

This was one of my priority targets for last year - where it landed at Northern Stompboxes towards the end of that year - and I was determined to land it as early as possible this year.

Controls - Q1 Gain, Blue Button Fuzz / Distortion Switch, White Button Fixed High Pass Filter Switch, V] Volume, A] Attenuate Input, C] Q2 Bias, F] First Order Low Pass Filter.
 
Key Features

• boost, overdrive, distortion, fuzz circuit
• large capacitors for all the thickness
• fixed high-pass filter
• first-

As I predicted - very shortly after the JHS-led large format Big Muff 2 (which is still available), we got the compact EHX variant at half the price, and less than a third of the size!

Readers will know how I feel about unnecessarily large format pedals - which is why those original / styled EHX pedal types are far from my favourites. Where I will almost always prefer a compact pedalboard-friendly take on that circuit.

My friend Ian at Gigahearts has done his own personal take on that ...

New Pedals in the Class of 2025 Pedal-Chain Snapshot = 41

[OCTOBER]  = 9

[NOVEMBER] = 6

[MARCH] = 5

[SEPTEMBER] = 5

[AUGUST] = 4

[JANUARY] = 3

[FEBRUARY]  = 3

[APRIL] = 2

[JUNE] = 2

[MAY] = 1

[JULY] = 1

[A-Z by Brand]

1. Becos FX CompIQ Pro Yuna Soft Knee Blackmer VCA Studio Style Compressor [SEPTEMBER]
2. Blue Colander Grimrobe Dual Cascaded Super Rat [OCTOBER]
3. Blue FX Devices Fuzz Fields Ultimate Modulated Fuzz [SEPTEMBER]
4. Boss RT-2 Rotary Ensemble Leslie / Rotary Speaker

Probably the strongest selection of the year - each one of these is amazing and sounds killer. But then agin similar was true of the Overdrives. I’m very much a fuzz fanatic - so his selection has to take the edge - what a selection!

This selection includes 3 from EarthQuaker Devices, 2 from Drunk Beaver, 2 from Fjord Fuzz, and 2 from ThorpyFX.

It also includes the likely pedal of the year - within a selection of 10 award winners here - these are so good - I could have labelled even ...

So I’m a huge fan of high gain Doomy Fuzzes - with already favourites including the Blackhawk Balrog and the Lichtlaerm Altar.

I’m delighted to report that the fierce and amazingly textured High Gain MOSRAWR Fuzz is wholly up to the task too. Each of my now 3 favourites hits slightly differently - with the Balrog still the King of Sludge - it just has that sticky low end that delivers exactly the right texture for that. Make no mistake - these are all top-tier Doom Fuzzes - with ...