Their chosen band name mightn’t stick out – and certainly isn’t search engine friendly – but if you should chance upon Volume, it’ll take all of four chords to get the measure of this stoner/retro metal band. Originally released in 2002, ‘Requesting Permission To Land’ didn’t get as much press attention as ‘…And The Circus Leaves Town’ by Kyuss a few years earlier, or the works of Orange Goblin and Fu Manchu, but its five tracks take as much of a classic approach. What’s more, Volume were also adept at revisiting the proto metal sounds of the late 60s and early 70s and injecting them with an even greater vigour, making their sole album as much about force as doom-laden weightiness. In short, for retro thrills, it’s great – the kind of thing that should have been picked up by Man’s Ruin Records (RIP), or championed by Josh Homme and been massive.
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YAWNING BALCH – Volume One
As their name more than implies, Yawning Balch is a musical project that combines the talents of the entire Yawning Man band and Fu Manchu guitarist Bob Balch. Stoner fans have come to expect great music from both parties, but in their respective acts, neither have managed anything quite as drawn out as the sounds that fill half of this debut from the desert/stoner rock supergroup. Fu Manchu, especially, have often represented the accessible end of the stoner spectrum, so this really gives Balch an ideal landscape on which to stretch out.
GODS OF SOMETIMES – Gods Of Sometimes
You might assume that a band featuring Fu Manchu’s Brad Davis on various musical duties would take a stoner rock route, but his Gods of Sometimes – a duo formed with similarly multi-faced studio hand Andrew Gukamakis – paints a much broader musical canvas. Their self-titled album has a hazy desert rock air in a couple of places, but the bulk of the material shouldn’t just be pigeonholed as such. Nor is it an easy love letter to an alternative rock past; there are elements within the arrangements that call back a much earlier time, whilst still sounding relevant at the time of recording.