Inspired by a collective love of American culture and 70's rock music. as well as more recent bands like Soundgarden and Sleep, Groningen, Netherlands based trio Chief of Smoke are the perfect fit for these pages as their music possesses all the attributes we at Desert Psychlist hold dear to our hearts like fuzzy guitar tones, clean slightly buried in the mix vocals and thunderous rhythms guaranteed to have the neighbours banging on the walls. The band, Omar Larabi (guitar/vocals); Romke-Theun de Vries (bass) and Tom Bak (drums), first appeared on Desert Psychlist's radar via their 2016 debut "A Fresh Round of Smoke" a gnarly mix of weedian heaviness blended with elements of early 70's proto-metal which they then followed up two years later with "Rice Paddy Rodeo"(2018), a denser darker sounding release, still 70's influenced but with a more of a low slow and heavy stoner doom dynamic. The guys slipped off our radar for a period after their second release but have returned this month with a new album "Short Cuts" an album that sees them exploring much the same musical territories they did on their previous releases but this time taking things up a level.
Devotees of fuzz teetering on the edge of total breakup will be in danger of ruining their underwear when they get a load of the guitar tones Omar Larabi employs on opening number "Burnt Cloth and Rancid Gardenias", those tones are not just a noise they are an almost tangible entity that crawls into your ears and spread through you like a contagion, tones that become especially effective when paired with Romke-Theun de Vries low growling bass lines, Tom Bak's sturdy thundersome drumming and the guitarists own clean slightly nasal but nevertheless powerful vocals. Next song "Embracing the Serpent" takes what is essentially a 70's hard rock groove, drowns it in fuzz and distortion and then tops it off with a Beatle-easque vocal melody, its a trick that has worked well for Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and it works here too. Chief of Smoke inject a little bluesy psychedelic texturing into the mix for next track "Arc of Resistance" along with an element of Sabbath-like heft, an element also reflected in Larabi's vocal which channels a little Ozzy-like whine in its execution. For their last track, "Horsehead", Chief of Smoke don their cowls and cloaks and treat us to some dank, dark and nasty stoner doom, the songs sludgy guitar and bass refrains. reverberating over mountainous drumming, might fool you into expecting vocals pitched at the more extreme end of the vocal spectrum but instead what you get is a vocal melody that if stripped away from its dank doomic surroundings could easily pass as something lifted from some classic rock album, a contrast of styles that shouldn't work but just does.
If you are looking for an album that combines your love for 70's hard rock and proto-metal with your love of sludge and stoner-doom then Chief of Smoke's "Short Cuts" is your new go to jam. It's an album that is musically heavy and blustering but at the same time vocally melodic and swinging, a true best of both worlds.
Check it out ....
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