Kyuss
Sons of Kyuss

Raw, rough, unripe, abrasive, dirty, and dusty. 

The tracks of this album, the first work by Kyuss, dated 1990, struggle to flow through the speakers.

It almost seems as if the sand, pebbles, and the few dry, withered plants of the Coachella Valley are trapped in these sparse compositions, creating friction with the hard rock rhythms and Sabbath-like style.

Amid the recycled riffs from '70s bands, a disease, until that moment unknown, formed by psychedelic infiltrations, acidic tones, and desert shadows, sneaks in.

The disease, however, is still in the "gestation" phase and cannot make any significant contributions, which surface only occasionally.

It will finally infect Kyuss in 1992, with the immortal blues for the red sun, finally creating something shocking, a unique and monstrous sound: stoner.

The release of this album (and the subsequent "Wretch"), therefore, can only be considered a test, a leap from the springboard.

Sounds like those in "Black Widow", "Happy Birthday" or "Love Has Passed Me By" do not belong to the Kyuss to come, and they are only the most obvious demonstration of the origins and the references to the stylistic elements of hard rock or the new metallic sound explosions, which, however, seem to refer only to '80s heavy metal, without considering tighter or sharper rhythms.

The purely Sabbath-like blues can instead be found in tracks like "King" or "Window of Souls", slow, heavy, and paced by Bjork's heavy drumming.

 "Deadly Kiss" instead stands out and, placed as the opening track, is particularly significant, especially in the intro: in this, one can clearly hear the early effects of the stoner-disease, thanks to Homme's powerful riff but especially thanks to Garcia's performance which, although still a novice, offers a singing style that is acidic, abrasive yet enveloping.

Except for the bass, rather anonymous (Oliveri hasn't arrived yet), the performances of Homme and Bjork are interesting: while the former is still quite "restrained," I would dare say, by the already too often reiterated seventies rhythmic patterns, or even pushed to use techniques he will never use again (see the very raw tapping in "Happy Birthday"!), the latter shows greater confidence, occasionally revealing his creative streak, albeit modestly.

All of this is seasoned by a dirty and handcrafted production, made in a lost recording studio in the middle of the desert, also used for subsequent works (the "desert sessions" of Homme).

An opera recommended for true "sons of Kyuss".