Bottom
You’rNext
Small Stone
Yikes! I thought I knew what I was getting into when I requested Bottom’s new album be sent my way, but I was very wrong. This is music for hardcore stoners and those folks who believe grunge is still a viable form of musical expression. You’rNext begins rifling through sour notes, upended chord progressions and horrifyingly loud paganism. It yields mixed results, but it is certainly better than the regression the songs take toward the end of the disc when frazzled, nervy tension short circuits the easy going grooves of the closing tracks. The liner notes claim copious amounts of Bushmills and “smoke” fuelled the creation of this album, which is appropriate considering how far off the rails the band’s sound ends up. It’s not a total wash though, as “Requiem” is a potent mixture of Sabbath riffing and sporadic vocal bursts from an all-female choir. Perhaps this was the song recorded during the window opened by the ideal mixture of substance abuse and creativity … who knows, but more time spent cultivating material like this and less time leaning on tired crutches like Tool and Alice in Chains would do both the band and its listeners a world of good.
Small Stone: http://www.smallstone.com
