Stoner Rock

With a literal blackhole sun on the album cover and Anna Papathanasiou’s mean Layne Staley wail, Puta Volcano lean more towards the grunge side of the stoner spectrum but there’s no mistaking the sand running through their blood. These Greeks are more interested in astronomy (both the science and the Blue Oyster Cult tune) than their local mythology. When they lock into that fuzzy groove on “Jovian Winds,” everything implodes.

These foremost chroniclers of sunny 70 SoCal skate and surf culture hit the half pipe with the initial wave of desert rock dabblers but took a bit to get revved up. The hat trick of In Search of, The Action Is Go, and peak King of the Road still impresses mightily. New guitarist Bob Balch beefed up their guitar sound here, making “Hell on Wheels,” “Boogie Van,” and the title track (hell, pretty much the entirety of Side A) the ideal examples of the form, while Scott Hill’s deadpan delivery provides the perfect contrast to his backing band’s high-octane road hogging.

A rare bit of Welsh weirdness, this mushroom-fueled opus seems to move in slow motion, making it feel like a trip without requiring any illegal consumption. If 65 minutes of washed-out waves of feedback produced for maximum heaviness by a future Judas Priest touring guitarist doesn’t light your pipe then stoner rock ain’t for you. Even though their summer lasts only 1/50 the time of Kyuss’s 50 million year trip, it’ll give you the summertime blues for sure.

Not quite as blacklight-worthy as the cover art implies, but high-energy stoner anthems like “Right Death Before” and “Low End Insight” certainly prove themselves lighter-worthy. Jason Shi’s soaring vocals (and complementary screaming) certainly provide a nice change from the genre’s usual deadpan affect. ASG handle the more low-key numbers equally well – “Coffee Depression Sunshine” feels like Pink Floyd gone grunge, and “A Number to Murder Two” shows they weren’t just hiding subpar songs behind all that fuzz.

Named after either a kitschy Wham-O toy from the 60s or a Frank Zappa song (the same thing, really), Monster Magnet came roaring out of Red Bank with a racket that sent 70s crate-dug obscurities stumbling through the killing fields of Reagan’s war on drugs. Dave Wyndorf drones out deadbeat poetry drawn equally from his own sordid life experiences and pop-culture ephemera, future Desert Session attendee John McBain sends out waves of weirdness, the rhythm section guides them both into infinity. Makes sense that they were on a label that once put out Faust and Gong records.

For his post-Kyuss project’s sophomore hit, Josh Homme brought in old pals Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan and put together one of the weirdest major-label documents of drug-fueled fear and loathing. Opening track “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” even lists a litany of consumables. Considering their herky-jerky rhythms, amplifier destruction, and Sonny Sharrock-like guitar squalling, inappropriate-for-children anthems like “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret,” “Better Living through Chemistry,” and “Monsters in the Parasol” shouldn’t be this catchy or commercial. But they are.

Eddie Glass and Ruben Romano didn’t get along with Scott Hill in Fu Manchu but apparently got along with each other, and thus Nebula was born. Their first few cosmic bodies suffered from an inspiration deficit. Tapping into the latent space rock tendencies befitting their name (and hiring Masters of Reality main man/Queens of the Stone Age producer Chris Goss to man the boards) allowed them to come into their own. “Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts,” according to second track “So It Goes,” and the sentiment applies to these concise stoner nuggets.

Ultimately lost in space when bassist/songwriter James B. Anders died subsequent to the recording of their second album, Detroit cosmonauts Novadriver’s initial launch marked one of the most promising stoner rock debuts of the new millennium. Heavily indebted to Fu Manchu but surfing the spaceways instead of SoCal breakers, their liberal injection of space rock swooshing made galactic grooves like “Rocket Superstar” and “Spinning into the Future” unforgettable trips into the void.

For some reason, Swedes love stoner rock, and Josh Homme once called these guys the best band in the world so the feeling’s mutual. Not much in the way of desert landscape in Scandinavia for them to cruise around in but apparently there’s some quality weed, and what more do you need besides that? Quality riffs, that’s what, and Truckfighters keep their eyes on that gravitational constant for the full hour-plus.

Matt Pike’s post-Sleep project definitely woke listeners up. By introducing a heaping dose of thrash to the formula, they helped perfect stoner metal – basically stoner rock’s skeezy cousin who owns the van with the shitty Frank Frazetta knock-off airbrushed on the side. Blessed Black Wings improved on its predecessors with Steve Albini’s infernal production and songs that doubled down on the barbarian berserker frenzy. “Devilution,” the title track, and closing death march instrumental “Sons of Thunder” prove you don’t need finesse when you have a big-ass battleax.

Leaving their hardcore and thrash past behind them, Corrosion of Conformity embraced their southern roots (and their love of Black Sabbath) on their fourth album and found a full-on stoner groove. New vocalist Pepper Keenan’s laconic singing lent itself to this new direction, but despite the change in sound they retained their animosity – unexpected radio hits “Albatross” and “Clean My Wounds” delivered some pretty harsh mellows.

Although they would soon fully step into the jam room, on their second record Maryland’s finest hadn’t yet fully strayed from their noise rock roots. Clutch have always been a bit too feral to fit into any one category. “Big News I and II” are probably the closest they got to stoner rock (and those songs beat the pants off of most entries in that genre), but by the time they hit the street preaching of “Escape from the Prison Planet” and the evil astronomy of “Spacegrass” it’s pretty obvious that where they were going they didn’t need roads.

Forced by the label to hire a singer for their debut in hopes of selling more copies, instrumental stoner rock trio Karma to Burn still failed to sell any copies so they fired their voicebox and went back to doing what they do best: kicking out the jams, motherforker. Hell, they care so little for words that their songs have numbers for titles. Thankfully no math is required to appreciate these ass kickers. Fun fact: they somehow aren’t the only instrumental stoner band from West Virginia!

Named after a Hawaii 5-0 villain, Wo Fat don’t show much in the way of the sunniness that the Aloha State is known for but they do demonstrate plenty of villainy. These Dallas dealers delve into some of the darkest, dankest depths this side of doom metal. On their fully-formed fifth full-length, they fire up the fuzz machines and howl horror stories in stretched-out, sick stoner symphonies like “Read the Omens” and “Beggar’s Bargain.”

Heart’s sister act only had two siblings – Stonefield double that number. These awesome Aussies hit the sweet spot with their psych-centered stoner jams and halcyon harmonies. They demonstrate quite the range here: organ-drenched 60s throwbacks like the title track and “In My Head” synthesize the very best in nostalgic noise to provide the perfect pop jams, while “Through the Storm” shows their darker side and “Visions” borders on disco. It’s all pretty far out.

Featuring a former Rocket from the Crypt and a future Black Crowe, (mostly) instrumental San Diegan heavy psych trio Earthless found themselves unexpectedly elevated to the 2008 Roadburn Festival’s mainstage. They plugged in their instruments and amplifiers, thanked the crowd, and then proceeded to lay out 83 minutes of blistering semi-improvised, semi-reinterpreted jamming that took the audience into the cosmic void implied by their name. Strands of Acid Mothers Temple and Cream run through their DNA, but even those exalted figures can’t sustain the transcendent tension-release dynamic that Earthless excel at.

The album that launched thousands of stoner rock bands – a few hundred of which also featured Kyuss’s John Garcia, Josh Homme, Nick Oliveri, and Brant Bjork. Sporting vastly improved production over their debut, Wretch, their sophomore smoke signal set the template for just about everything that followed on “Green Machine” and “50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up).” This fuzzed-out walkabout through the desolate Southern California desert still delivers the same buzz.

Colour Haze have a legit claim to the “Krautrock” tag – they hail from Germany. While they’re more of the stoner variety of rock, their temple is spelled the same way as Ash Ra’s, and although these pieces aren’t quite as sprawling you’d be hard-pressed to call them concise. They languidly follow the smoke to the riff-filled land as they drift across the feedback currents. Spectacular sights emerge along the way.

Difficult to pinpoint a temporal signature for these brutish Brits but Altamont, 1969 would be a good start. Originally more of a death/doom outfit (the first release was on a flipside from Electric Wizard), they gave into their radar love with full-length debut Frequencies from Planet Ten and by its follow-up they hit the road as hard as the undead bikers in Psychomania. Ben Ward’s bellow gives this a harsher vibe than their American stoner rock brethren. “Blue Snow” and “Nuclear Guru” smash right through the TARDIS.

Church of Misery parishioners put aside the serial killer shtick in favor of straight up amplifier abuse. No lyrics needed, just 25 minutes of some of the most bombastic broken blues you’ll ever hear. Immaculately stoned, phaser pedals set to stun, this is heavy psych at its absolute dirtiest. You could call it stoner rock but who would want to get stoned on these folks’ pollen?