Saturday 5 September 2015

OLD STOVE ~ #1 ....Heavy stoner grooves from Brazil

Back in Brazil again for some heavy desert/stoner grooves from Aracaju natives Old Stove and their butt-kicking new release "#1".

"#1" is a heavy album in more respects than one. Putting aside the immense wall of stoner/desert fuzzed riffage and heavy rhythmic pulses that are present throughout the six songs that make up "#1" there is also a dark heavy intensity running through the albums dark grooves.
"Place Pigalle" kicks things off in grand style,  Marcela Dias (bass) and Vinicius Macedo-(drums) laying down a solid storm of percussive thunder and four string majesty over which João Gabriel lays guitar and vocals, his guitar tone thick and fuzz drenched, his voice clean, warm and darkly smooth, delivering lines like "Beware the bright red light at night, just stay on the roof, keep calm" with effortless power and phrasing.
It is Gabriel's warm velvet tones, set against a dark musical maelstrom of fuzz and distortion, that sets Old Stove apart from other bands in the stoner/desert genre. More grunge than stoner, with an ever so slight Kurt Cobain rasp, Gabriel's voice adds a certain gravitas to the cryptic lyrics of "#1", injecting a worldly weariness into songs like "This Side Of Paradise" and the excellent "Gloria" that might have been lost had they been delivered in a more roared throaty stoner rock style.
"#1" is a stunning album that is well written, superbly performed and one that i will fully expect to be seeing on a few best of lists at the end of the year.



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