Shallow

16 Sunsets in 24 Hours (TMC)
by Brian Varney

Shallow bring to mind certain elements of Kyuss, but they don’t really sound like them because no one does. No one can. 16 Sunsets in 24 Hours has the fat, down-tuned heaviness of Kyuss as well as the pretty melodicism (something missing from Kyuss soundalikes like Dozer), but I don’t think anyone would confuse the two, you know? Nine tunes here, most of ’em falling between six and eight minutes, twisting and unfurling like a flag in the wind. There are occasional odd leaps into foreign territory (the bouncy, loping rhythmic speed-up in the middle of “God Module”), but these are few and far between. The experimental muse satisfied, they always return to the land of heavy riffs and fat grooves.

As you can probably tell, there’s a lot to chew on here, more than I could possibly cover in the course of this review. There’s enough heft here to satisfy stoner junkies (ha!) and the unconventional bits are interesting without being stodgy or boring. Tricky terrain, yes, but Shallow maneuver it with the ease of pros.
(PO Box 629 Port Washington, NY 11050)