Greatdayforup

Flores de Sangre (Small Stone)
by Craig Regala

My previous party line about’m was Greatdayforup hit like what I wanted Danzig’s metal move to punch in like when he creepy-crawled the metal hordes. Let’s update that a tad. This is a wide-bellied gut punch hard rock record born of kick ass alt/punk listening habits jammed into quality metal’s “thing.” Testament, Metallica, and Anthrax registered with a lot more than “pure” metalheads. Tell your new girl you saw these guys “Oh, dozens of times, playing with my friends, Soundgarden.” They really coulda fit there. Hell, your gonna lie to her anyway, you might as well lie about something cool. Or, if you wanna lie about something that did happen, say you saw’m with the band they split an EP (and some creative DNA) with, Solace.

These guys from Albany may’ve seen Bullet La Volta and other Taang! Records worthies who ignored the punk/metal divide when you could still get stomped for having the wrong hair length, but these guys popped this out on Small Stone, who pretty much lasso quality “Stoner Rock” whenever they throw out a rope. GDFU got that warm, thumpity-thump, deep-dish groove, clear singing, and sonic/structural referencing to Kyuss (jumping off point for QOTSA’s Josh Holmes), Sleep (launch pad of High on Fire), Black Flag (who begat Henry Rollins), and Sabbath, (who made a couple rockin’ slabs with Ronnie James Dio after they constructed a large portion of the known universe with their first four records), and Monster Magnet’s black light acid burn.

As a sensible man, I mention these facts as they concur with GDFU’s parameters. Powerful playing, a full-on recording, varied and well-developed songs, and a strong label that’ll give these guys the opportunity to dent a few skulls outside of the faithful. As much as I like the earlier stuff, especially the song “August 1979” from the Solace split, I’d say this is the one to get.
(www.smallstone.com)