Written by Carcassbomb
- Dead Acid People
- Earth Weed Fire
- Stoner doom
- France
- May 2019
- 9/10
I normally hate intro tracks but on a stoner record like this it actually builds up anticipation well. I might actually be turning around on that stance, seeing an intro fulfill its purpose for once. Then again, maybe most bands do gimmicky dumb shit with intros. Like bell sounds opening a black metal record. Off to a good start. To give you an idea where I’m at listening to this record, I just got surprised by a timer I set ten minutes ago for pizza. And now I’m excited because I suddenly have pizza all over again.
Now, Where was I? Ah yes… this is definitely stoner doom/rock, I can confirm that much. It’s hard to describe beyond that because if you look through my reviews of stoner doom, I’ve tried to vary my descriptions of fuzz and bass and gain as much as possible. I’m getting tired, or lazy. I will note for those looking for new doom that this is a slower clean vocal type of stoner doom.
I like the vocals on this. Clean vocals in this genre can very easily be boring but this guy brings a garage rock mentality to it that varies between droning and sharper hard rock hooks. Each track is self contained, so each new song is another focus or style, it’s not manic across the one track or anything like that. It’s really sensible and measured, I’m impressed.
It is much closer to stoner rock – which to be fair, is how they describe themselves. I simply use stoner doom to describe the spacey, fuzzy and slow sounds that can have any amount of variations of softness or heaviness or both. So just know, I will tag most stuff stoner doom and stoner rock regardless. It’s going to the same people anyway.
On a surface level, there doesn’t appear to be much beyond weed worship. But if you actually pay close attention to the lyrics:
“HOW MANY TIMES, HAVE YOU BEEN WARNED
OPEN YOUR EYES, AND SEE THE WORLD
IT’S NOT SO HARD, TO PLAY YOUR PART
IT’S NOT SO HARD, TO DO IT RIGHT
NOW SMOKE A JOINT, AND SEE THE LIGHT” – from the title track.
“THIS IS A SHIELD, THIS IS A SWORD
THIS IS THE HATE YOU’RE FIGHTING FOR
THIS IS A MASS DESTRUCTION WEAPON
THIS IS YOUR FAITH, NOT EVERYONE’S
HAND IN HAND, YOU FIGHT
HAND IN HAND, IN THE END YOU DIE” – from Wrong Faith
It’s not so much “lol weed 420” kind of message as much as it is about mental well being and warning against indoctrinated thinking. But that’s not all, and this is where they really have me hooked, this is where the theme all ties together, The Dude’s rug – the metaphor they use to convey their concepts. Their album cover and the concepts of seeing truth beyond the haze are inspired by They Live, the infamous John Carpenter film where Roddy Rod Piper gets a pair of sunglasses that lets him see people who are aliens as well as the truth behind messages like advertising and propaganda.
Using the 80’s movie aesthetic visually, representing it lyrically and then musically suiting it – this is great presentation. This is a presence of theme that I adore and that a lot of bands just don’t possess. This is the kind of music to watch Repo Man on with the volume down.
If you haven’t seen They Live or Repo Man and you’re into stoner doom, go watch them right now. Pirate them if you need, they’re old movies. They Live has a ten minute fight scene where a tough guy tries to make another tough guy wear the all-seeing glasses but he keeps resisting. It’s a fight between allied grown ass men over glasses and it’s glorious. Repo Man is just amazing too, it starts as such a simple almost punk kind of movie and slowly becomes a full blown conspiracy science fiction film where the main character eventually floats away in a glowing green car.
Sure, most of the stoner and doom genre have a theme, but anything can have a theme and themes can be tight or lose. They can be predictable or original. This feels tight and original conceptually while still serving the glorious tropes of the genre. I don’t mean original in the sense that nothing like this has been done in music, I mean someone had an independent idea and the intent to depict that idea as fleshed out as possible. That is what original work is. It’s writing, and they’ve written something I really enjoy. The ocean, witch burning, Greek mythology and all that are done so much that you really need to bring an extra layer of personal meaning to it.
“All the artwork was made by Alain (our bass player), based on original photos taken by Anne-GaHell, across the United States (while road-tripping with UFO’s…).
You can follow Alain’s work here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31883996@N02/
And Anne-GaHell shares most of her work through Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annegahell/
– from the band member Math via messenger.
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