Wow, heavy, heavy, heavy! Like there’s so much to take in with this release man! Okay, bad jokes aside, and that’s the only kind I do, and vaguely serious amateur music reviewing head in place, there is so much history riding on this album. Fans of Kyuss must be practically tenting their flared jeans at the thought of the re-joining of alumni Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri, who with drummer Ryan Güt make up Stöner, but sorry, if you nostalgianauts were expecting a note perfect recreation of that desert sound, I must disappoint you. In a classic case of nominative determinism, this is a massive unashamed slab of weed worship with all the subtlety and apology of a Kevin Smith cock-knocker joke. So, settle back, spark up, if that is your bag man, and like, enjoy.

‘Rad Stays Rad’ drifts across the consciousness like a half-remembered conversation that you had with a friend after some chemical alteration and were utterly convinced at the time was the most important conversation you ever had; mellow and half remembered, the vague delivery just hovers at the edge of recollection. ‘The Older Kids’ slouches out of the speakers next, with all the insistence of Christopher Lloyd’s Jim from ‘Taxi’ demanding the payment of a reneged fare (damn, but having researched that reference, I am old!); if you are looking for a number to have your adrenaline pumping in time to a leather and spike clad fist, well, search elsewhere. If the first two tracks were too frenetically delivered for you to take, ‘Own Yer Blues’ is a, well, Blues crawl so mellow it is practically delivered horizontally, hearkening to the most mellow time of London’s White Boy Blues clubs where Alexis Korner and John Mayall tapped into the sounds of the American South in the sixties and replaced the anger of moonshine ire with the consciousness expansion of THC; mosh pits will not be triggered by this one folks.

‘Nothin’’ is by comparison an angry growl, but only in so far as sort of waking up is an angry alternative to being fully asleep. In order to get your mosh on, you must stay awake for ‘Evel Never Dies’, a tribute to that Seventies leather and stars and stipes clad canyon leaping hero, the motorised thud of the beats matching the throb of that erstwhile icon’s custom Harley Davidson. I don’t know why, but since my last ever pre-Covid gig was Mondo Generator in Glasgow, I feel this track with a sneering growl was more inspired by Nick Oliveri’s frustration than Brant Bjork’s dudeishness, if “dudeishness” is a word. ‘Stand Down’ ups the pace from that of pure THC indulgence, and Brant’s guitar almost gets to duel with Nick’s angrily plucked four string rage machine, and if you don’t feel your foot tapping along, may I suggest you have a doctor check if your nervous system still works? The album is then closed off, or maybe “tripped out” by ‘Tribe/Fly Girl’; if you want a description, let me say that a hypnotic looping bass line opens up, complimented by chanting vocals and resinous beats that don’t so much evolve as drift into the sonic soundscape of the chemically distracted before taking a trip into the regions of inner consciousness so beloved of Captain Brock. At nearly a quarter of an hour, and deserving of its own 12” record day limited release,‘Tribe/Fly Girl’ truly deserves its own review; the fact it is just dropped casually at the end of this album is a testament to the material the band must have backed up and have ready in the wings.

As well as the long forgotten return of the superfluous heavy metal umlaut, not seen since the heyday of Motörhead, Mötley Crüe, and maybe most famously Spın̈al Tap, Stöner are a throwback to when it was not necessary to innovate, stretch boundaries, or introduce new and unfamiliar sounds. Rather they are as warm and mellow as the smoke weaving from the bowl of a well used hookah, and need to just be admired as such. Me? Well I know they are playing the UK in 2022, and I am already begging my wage slave masters for time off for their shows; I suggest you do the same.

(8.5/10 Spenny)

https://www.facebook.com/StonerBandOfficial

https://heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/st-ner-stoners-rule