Band: Stonus
Album: Seance
Label: Electric Valley Records
Style: Stoner/Doom
Release Date: 03/26/2021
If you ever woke up one morning and was like, “I’d really love to hear a band that mixes Fu Manchu and Monster Magnet and hails from Cyprus but currently lives in London,” then does the Wizard have a band for you. This five-piece released their debut album (Aphasia) last year and, like most bands, found themselves mired in inactivity due to the pandemic. So they went back to work and created this three-song EP that seethes with woolly riffs, pounding bass, and plenty of psychedelic flourishes.
“Evil Woman” opens the offering, a straightforward rocker. They come raging out with those fuzzed riffs and you just gotta love those Wyndorf-like vocals, full of authority and dominance. It all blurs into a series of slashing notes and hallucinogenic kisses by the end. Second song “Messianism” is heavy and rollicking, a slower number, that bass working your ears and thumping your chest. The riffs are there, of course, and it feels a little funkier, bluesier, and looser than the first track. Just a little. Heated and simmering, this song has plenty of peaks and valleys to keep those fans of light and shade plenty happy. Closer “El Rata” really leans into the psychedelic and is the most experimental of the three new songs. That’s not to say it doesn’t rock, because it does, but the last three minutes really steal the show. This is where things get slow and slamming and pretty yet ugly at the same time. It’s like an acid trip verging on going bad, but just sweet enough to keep you smiling.
This EP was a good way to fill in some time, until the band can get to touring and sharing their music around the world (hopefully). Stonus is a group with a bright future, whose feet are firmly set in the traditional foundations of Stoner Doom and yet their hearts are reaching for something a bit more. It will be interesting to see where they go to next.
The Wizard Has Spoken!