As a point of clarification, I have to ask: who exactly coined the phrase “stoner rock” and applied it to languid, reasonably atonal and/or drone-y rock n' roll? It definitely wasn't a bunch of stoners, nor was it anyone who regularly associates with potheads either; almost anyone can tell you that fans of the herb tend to be an industrious sort – building and making things – and tend to be a fairly content and affable bunch; not a bunch of malcontents. So why is “Stoner Rock” so drone-y, introspective and downbeat? Your 33 Black Angels must have asked the same question at some point because, while their debut album's title (Songs From The Near Bleak Future) follows the aforementioned depressing paradigm, the music on it attempts to expand a few minds and has more than a few sounds on it that will make the average pothead giggle.
To be fair, the album does start with the same sort of static fade-in that could only be called de rigeur for the form but it doesn't take long for Your 33 Black Angels to begin messing with convention as evidenced by the Casiotone keyboard that kicks into the proceedings of “Heart Stone Metal Bone” at about the same time the drums do for a little bit of silliness that will make a stoned few say “Ooooh” and everybody else laugh because it just seems so off-base to have that sound in the song's foreground. The weirdness doesn't recede from there either – “Dead Like Me” pushes a few more buttons with its' positively spry rhythm, trim beat and a guitar line that sounds like it was stolen from a Cure song. In the case of “Dead Like Me,” the only things that seem like they should be in a “stoner rock” song are Josh Westfal's vocals (which won't make any Grateful Dead fan bat an eye) and the wheezing harmonica that appears occasionally. With all these different sounds playing through, hard rock fans who have grown accustomed to “stoner rock” being about gloom and doom will probably scream bloody murder, but the rest of us will feel compelled to sit back – relaxed and hypnotized by a back that is finally getting it right.
After “Dead Like Me,” the goofy hits just keep on coming as “I'm A Fool For Funtown” grafts a keyboard figure that would make Pig Pen cheer to a tight and succinct rocker, “A Song About A Car” takes Fifties doo-wop out for a spin, “Persistence Of Vision” dives headlong into the Eighties for some stiff noodling which could only be characterized as “smoked yourself retarded” and the whole mess converges into one supremely joyous noise both in “Modern Girl” and “Trouble King.” In each of those cases, the songs are really only about the sounds in them – not the subject matter – which is handy because the lyric sheets are about as dumb as you can get. They do hold up as the fluffy, good-natured and cute things they are though; just like the pothead you know in high school who could make himself faint on command in order to get out of class early and go smoke a bowl, Your 33 Black Angels are lots of fun and really, really silly. Here's hoping they don't straighten up on us for future releases.
Artist:
www.your33blackangels.xbuild.com/
www.y33ba.com/
www.myspace.com/your33blackangels
Album:
Songs From The Near Bleak Future is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
