For the dedicated music fan, hearing a great new album is rather akin to the feeling that a gourmet gets when introduced to a particularly tasty meal. The pulse quickens, the heart pulses and a sense of excitement, not unlike that of an epiphany descends upon the listener. It is exciting, almost like ecstasy and utterly impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t share your passion – your exhortations about the particular joys of a new album more often than not receiving polite nods and exasperated looks.
However, it is just this feeling that strikes when you are introduced to the flaming guitars and psychedelic visions of London’s mighty stubb, a band possessed of a nonsensical name and a penchant for riffs hewn out of solid rock. An answer to the tripped out bliss of American acts Om, Earthless and Carlton Melton, Stubb not only hold their own but even succeed in overpowering their transatlantic cousins with some truly remarkable song writing and beautiful soloing.
Opening with the frazzled trip that is ‘road’, it doesn’t take long to gain a measure of the quality of Stubb – vocals are slack but tuneful, guitars are played with dazzling virtuosity and riffs of such quality fly by that, if they’re not causing Josh Homme sleepless nights, they damn well should be. As if anticipating your instinctive reaction that a band you may well have never heard of can’t possibly that good, the bands then blindside you by unleashing ‘scale the mountain’ a song that, if anything, improves upon its predecessor and labels Stubb firmly as the band that Them Crooked Vultures wanted to be – a bold statement indeed. A massive… no, a MASSIVE stoner riff crawls out of the speakers, cymbals crash and a solo is ground out before vocals are even contemplated and underpinning all this, the bass sleepwalks around the riffs with consummate ease, providing a solid base from which the band can launch their spacey epics. As the song approaches five minutes, soaked in reverb and feedback it’s as if the stars have aligned and there is nothing you won’t do for this band.‘Flame’ sees the pace slacken as Stubb go for the pelvis with a slow-grind riff that is part Kyuss, part Barry White and even then it explodes into a thousand points of light as the riffs become more agitated and the band unleash a torrent of holy fire from their overloaded amps. ‘Soul mover’ does exactly what its title suggests – a furious, full-throttle boogie designed to shake any and every part of you that needs shaking before reaching a furious climax.
After so wanton a start, It’s high time for a breather and so the band opt for an acoustic ramble through the delightfully lo-fi ‘crosses you bear’ which is both elegiac and gloriously bare – as if the band are more than aware of the song’s natural charms and resisted the urge to smother it in any unnecessary embellishments. Indeed it is the closest I’ve heard yet to a band approaching the frayed splendour of Syd Barret’s solo work and it provides a suitable breather before we are dazzled with ‘hard hearted woman’ – a tripped-out riff-fest of monumental proportions which is equal parts Hendrix, Audioslave and Deep Purple and which proves to be a potent brew indeed right down to the spacey bass solo that proves so effective in the latter stages of the song. ‘Crying river’ sees the band adopt a laid-back tone and effective backing vocals courtesy of Malin Dahlgren who adds depth to the track, as does Tony Dallas Reed who throws in some glorious guitar giving the track a gentle Neil Young feel. The final track, and oh does it arrive far too soon, is the gloriously heavy ‘galloping horses’ which has a riff approximately the size and weight of Pluto, and percussion to match. Better still is the lengthy instrumental outro that is as fluid and as heavy as anything Zeppelin produced. It’s a fine ending to a fine album indeed and it leaves you very much in thrall to a band who have delivered an album that belongs high up indeed in the pantheon of psychedelic rock monsters.
All in all Stubb have delivered a debut that can only be described as flawless. If you don’t enjoy this record then you clearly hate rock music and you should head off to a deserted island to spend the rest of your years in disgrace with only your secret stash of Britney albums for company. For everyone else I struggle to emphasise quite how good this bluesy, stoner, psychedelic, monstrously heavy album is – go discover it for yourself now, you will not be disappointed.
Find out more: http://www.superhotrecords.com/
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