Lowrider
Ode To Io

When do you decide to write a review?

We all have albums that we consider stunning, perfect, magnificent, and perhaps precisely for this reason, we can't put together a text that seems worthy. Or maybe albums that have been reviewed six times, and we abandon the idea so as not to get lost in the encyclopedia of humor or in recipes for New Zealand desserts in the comments. There are some albums for which "there's always time" to write a review, since we doubt anyone else will think of doing so, and there are others for which we might have already started to jot down something in black and white, but we're missing the ending or the cover.

And then there is the album that you throw into the stereo one day without knowing the genre, ignoring where you bought or downloaded it, and as soon as the first track starts... damn! I must review this, you repeat to yourself while the foot tapping has already given way to the first head nods. You look for a pen that is naturally not there, and the shaking becomes more harmonious and convincing; then, once you find the orange pencil that doesn't have a point (and you don't know what a sharpener looks like since 8th grade), you turn on the PC at the third attempt (by now the musical epilepsy makes even pressing a key difficult), open word, sit down, choose a humanly visible font that isn't Wingdings and... you leave everything, get up to replay the first song of the album and start jumping on the sofa.

That's the ideal moment to write a review. But it requires the right album.

"Ode To Io" is one of those albums for me. This doesn't automatically make it a masterpiece, maybe a year from now, I'll find myself reevaluating it downward, I'll probably listen to it a lot during this period and later who knows... the fact is now, as I write this, I am thankful to have it in my hands.

And I play it again from the start: "Caravan" bursts in, framing the entire album. Immediate, powerful, raw. Simple stoner-rock, there are no special psychedelics here, no doom slowdowns, almost non-existent electronics or various samples.

But the simplicity is precisely the strength of this Swedish quartet from Karlstad; after a split with Nebula (the band of Glass and Romano, ex-Fu Manchu) this is their only album released in 2000 and reissued in 2002, since then nothing more, even though officially the band has not yet dissolved.

The tracks are all on the same level, dirty guitars, simple yet engaging metrics and in many songs, the convincing work of a bass with Sabbathian tones stands out ("Texas pt. I & II") that lifts us off the ground. And then how can fans of the genre resist the initial attack of "Dust Settlin'" which revives Kyuss, the riffs of "Anchor", the cadenced pace of "Convoy V", or the rock rhythm with an open hi-hat of "Flat Earth"? You let yourself go, relaxing a bit when "Sun Devil" arrives, a rough acoustic interlude that divides the album in two and projects us towards the equally beautiful "Riding Shotgun" and "Saguaro", the latter introduced by radio interference.

The room saturates, the notes penetrate everywhere, the ultra-expanded rock sounds envelop us.

And then, let's be honest, what's wrong with shaking a little in the living room while listening to a good album? You feel better, you feel freer, it feels "normal" to let yourself go to the sonic convulsions.

At least until I meet my wife's gaze leaning against the door, watching me with psychiatric compassion while I'm at the top of a chair with a rug beater in hand mimicking a nice guitar.

And you feel decidedly less "normal"...