NOSTONE ~ ROAD INTO THE DARKNESS ..... review

 

In a secret underground location, somewhere in Argentina during the height of a global pandemic, three musicians, Pablo Lanziani (vocals/guitars/synths); Diego Moran (bass) and Maximiliano Fradellin (drums/percussion) collectively known as Nostone, came together to make an album that they hoped would not only be appreciated on their home turf of Argentina but may just make a few waves on the international scene. Well judging by the early reactions Desert Psychlist has already read regarding the bands debut album "Road Into The Darkness" that hoped for wave is fast becoming a tsunami!

"Road Into The Darkness" opens with an intro piece appropriately entitled "Intro", an instrumental workout that begs, borrows and steals from every horror movie soundtrack that has ever been made, church organs mimicked on a synthesizer giving the song an ominous feeling of foreboding doom. "Bewitched" quickly follows and that doominess hinted at on the albums opening song is confirmed with a groove that is dark, dank and heavy yet, and here is where we may lose some of you reading thus far, that groove is counterbalanced with vocals that are clean hazy and melodic, in fact there are moments on this song, and for that matter, many of the five songs that follow where those vocals might well be described as Beatle-esque. Of course any band taking a proto-doom route are at one time or another going to be compared to Black Sabbath and it has to be said that there are times throughout this album where the band do hit a groove that has Sabbath-esque undertones but in truth those undertones are more likely to have come via Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats than direct from the original source. Much like Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats Nostone combine a love of a good riff with a love of a good melody but there is also an experimental side to this band, a side they display on their treatment of the quirky and psychedelic Sam Gopal song "The Sky Is Burning", a bonus track that would not, dare we say it,  have sounded too far out of place had it appeared on one of the Beatles more acid inspired later albums.

Those readers who stayed with us and were not turned off by the Beatles references will, when they click on the link below, hear an album that truly epitomizes the term psychedelic doom, an album that is as hazy as it is heavy and as tripped out as it is titanic.

Check it out ..... 

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