Some stoner rock sets itself up for the ‘pub rock’ comparisons, largely due to lumpen and basic structures led by portly, slovenly older gents who step up to the mic and produce even less tune and stamina than Lemmy with a chest infection. Not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of weight and and a chilled attitude of course: if there was, I for one would be in bother…step up Oregon’s Diesto, whose vocalist Chris Dunn sounds like Sons of Otis’ Ken Baluke, roaring along with less control than a man who’s just supped twenty pints of best.

 

Here, however, it fits, slipping in alongside a laconic yet fiendish groove and a bloody powerful rhythm section, allied to riffs of the suitable weight. For Water or Blood (Eolian Empire), the band’s fifth full-length, is choc-full of delightful cacophonies such as the climax to opener ‘Trail to the Sun’, whilst the pace occasionally slips into doom territory with the leaden drag and sleazy lead of ‘Edge of the World’, complete with a consumptive yet atmospheric chorus. ‘The Road’ takes a step further: the middle section dipping toes into the dropped-out sludge of Rwake before lifting to a stoner-blues crash which will have the hinges of both necks and hips snapping. The vocals do let proceedings down on occasions when they’re looked to for inspiration, such as the leaden elements of ‘Sirens’. Indeed the whole ensemble seems to float astray on ‘Dirty River’ and the aptly-titled ‘Adrift at Sea’ before being brought back to life from their prosaic, repetitive stupor by electrifying leads and a reawakened sticksman, his hypnotic rhythms suddenly making perfect sense of it all.

 

The thunderous staccato riffs and harrowing scream of ‘Arrows’ closes an album of real paradox: oft bereft of identity, but with enough excitement, weight and power to ultimately rescue its reputation. Plainly speaking stoner can be as dull as dishwater without that little spark, the grain of invention to twist it around. Or a little bit of sludge of course, the filth and gravity of which has served Diesto well on this occasion.

7.0/10

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Paul Quinn