Recorded and mixed by Bloodhag’s Jeff McNulty and mastered by the legendary Tad Doyle, this EP from Seattle stoners Wyoming Young and Strong has a huge, live in the studio sound that makes similar works by renowned producer Jack Endino seem half-arsed. Presenting a wall of distortion coupled with sludge/hardcore riffs that sound like early Tad battling with ‘Ozma’ period Melvins, the band take the stoner metal sound from their earlier ‘Black Wire’ LP and ramp everything up about three fold. The results are absolutely devastating.
Tag Archives: stoner metal
VOLUME – Requesting Permission To Land
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.
EWIGKEIT – Out Of The Woods EP
To move forwards, sometimes you have to go backwards. That’s certainly the case with Ewigkeit and their 2022 EP ‘Out of The Woods’. This follow up to the band’s excellent – and intense – pandemic inspired EP ‘Depopulate’ features three tracks that were written for James Fogarty’s former band In The Woods at some point prior to 2019. However, circumstances led to the band splitting, and James decided it wouldn’t be wise to let some potentially strong material go to waste.
BLUE HERON – Ephemeral
At the tail end of 2021, a new stoner band appeared over the musical horizon. Blue Heron were incredibly heavy, and yet conveyed broad atmospheres within their world of darkness. It was clear from their two track debut that they weren’t just another sludgy doom and stoner vehicle hacking out weighty riffs.
BLUE HERON – Black Blood Of The Earth / A Sunken Place
The name Spiritu was never stoner rock’s most famous, but the New Mexico band left behind a brief legacy which included a Jack Endino produced album and live experiences shared with Clutch and the mighty Spiritual Beggars. For those who missed the band at the time, it would be fair to suggest that their Kyuss derived sound would be broadly appealing to most fans of that style. Six years on from Spiritu’s second and final recording, ‘Human Failures’, half of the band have emerged from hibernation, making up the core of Blue Heron. Despite being a new name on the stoner scene for 2021, the sounds they make are of a timeless appeal, and ahead of an already completed debut album, this two song 7” gives a fantastic taste of a band about to gain some huge traction with the desert rock diehards.