Ready to enter madness with Bongzilla?
The mythic Sludge/Doom/Stoner band created in the United States in 1995 is back with Weedsconsin, its fifth album. Mike “Muleboy” Makela (bass/vocals, previously guitarist, Aquilonian), Jeff « Spanky » Schultz (guitar, ex-Cuda) and Mike « Magma » Henry (drums, Aquilonian, The Garza) has to say goodbye to Cooter Brown (bass, The Garza, ex-Cuda) but keep going since their comeback in 2015.
The band signed with Heavy Psych Sounds for this strong resurgence, which is translated by six compositions under the sign of this magic smoke and an Old School, greasy and seizing song at the same time. There are few screamed lyrics, allowing the band to focus on the catchy rhythmic, that makes their music’s basis. We understand it very fastly on Sundae Diver, a very raw and heady song, that sometimes adds some crude gruntings, but above all a massive groove and some pattern borrowed to the style’s creators. Greasy melodies drive us after some leads to Free the Weed, a song that offers a rhythmic on which we don’t even realize we nod, but also some thick violence spurts and raging howlings that melt to a dark and weighing ambience. When the sound slows down to crush us, it leaves us on Space Rock, a long song that progressively catches us to its universe which is similar to the previous songs, but with some more airy parts. The song focuses on a rhythmic with marked Blues influences, airy and mesmerizing riffs, but also piercing leads.
The band continues with The Weedeater, a soft airy transition of more than thirty seconds to connect with Earth Bong / Smoked / Mags Bags, a quite conceptual composition that begins with some ghostly soaring notes, that suddenly become very heavy and fast. The song lets place to the singer for some howlings, then screaming leads with psychedelic influences come. The band revives the flame of this heavy rhythmic, before letting it slowly consume itself, then drums announce the end of the song, that goes on with Gummies, the final track. Musicians spread as thick as heavy rhythmic, using some samples, then crushes us before barely calming down to let us breath and use samples again. The song ends with a fade out that makes us want to live the moment again.
Bongzilla’s reputation is clearly not stolen, Weedsconsin is the proof. The band’s sound is still as greasy, groovy and seizing as before, offering a new part of hypnotic heaviness to headbang on.
90/100