Well, this is mm… a “weird post”, just to show how big my ego gets sometimes. I’m gonna like add a list of those bands I consider “essential”, in case you like stoner music. Now, something special is that this list will not only include those bands regarded as stoner rock or stoner metal, but also those bands that somehow makes you feel like dizzy and are capable to drag your mind into their inner worlds.
I’ve been like listening to stoner some years, not many, but enough I guess considering that I’m like an obsessive and compulsive person…but ain’t gonna talk about myself here. So here you got such list and you may find each album mentioned, in this very website. Also, I won’t say which band is better, but only refer to them. Nonetheless, being this blog my own creation, you should consider my likes, whenever it comes to check up new stuff. These bands are those bands I cannot live without.
Balero: This is HELL itself. What I like about this instrumental stoner band is that having only 3 members, it is able to unleash the inferno over your brain and it is stoner in every sense, because the tempos and rhythm keep you at their sound without any distraction, but dancing and mosh-ing. They like start quiet to end up in chaos. They put your blood to boil. Balero is wrath. They are not the typical instrumental stoner band like pelican and many others with long slow songs, but short and breathtaking. Balero are like stoner explosions.
Karma to Burn: West Virginia might have been the greatest place in earth, back in Karma to Burn’s heyday. This is another Instrumental band, more like southern rock, but stoner as well. When approaching this band you got to go over “Wild, wonderful purgatory” which by far their best work. In fact, this album should be called “greatest hits”. Unlike Balero’s fat and massive sound, Karma is more like a knife or sword, something enough sharp and precise like to split you “right in two”. But also may make you suffer, got some slow songs with passages of pure hate. Karma got that skill to change the whole song climate in a matter of seconds. Got also like more melancholic songs, but the anger keeps at it, like going behind, always stalking your ears to suddenly melt them down. Something important about this band is that being from the later 90s, it helped to give birth and strength to many later stoner bands.
Treasure Cat: This band comes from the “leftovers” or “ashes” of Karma to burn, so now you may see how much I appreciate Karma. The bass work preformed in this band is just “ravishing” (Matt Cross), as well as the work done by “percussionist” Roy Brewer and finally, guitarist Will Melcum. Nonetheless, the view here is different than in Karma. Treasure Cat is more of a groovy experience. The sound isn’t as massive as in Balero or Karma, but rather more joyful, in the sense that this band sound does not throw to ground. On the contrary, somehow it pours you over an addictive balsam that keeps you at their sound. Cats like got nine lives, that effects is proper of this music. The joy never dies, but sets your brain into fire and makes you burn for hours. After a couple of minutes, Treasure cat turns into wrath as well or maybe more of a “berzek” state, cuz is a joyful experience as I said, and this like a band to listen with more people. The first, I rather listen them alone so that I can lose within myself.
Well, this is it for now. I should post some more topics like this one, once in while, just like to state my own line and likes within this particular style of music. Instrumental stoner rocks, because as I said in my previous post, there is no bounds of any kind, it jus you and the music alone. Bands with lyrics often take your mind to one direction, if the topic is hate, then the lyrics should lead you to politics or anti-christianism, but lacking lyrics, you can ake your own picture of the music, your own paradise or hell, that’s the essence of stoner music, the voice should that too, to be a mere instrument you may interpret free bounds.
