GRAVE SPEAKER - Rays of the Emerald Sun
Electric Valley Records
Irony is my door step in life. Case in point I was talking with a worker (bartender / waiter) at my restaurant the other day about music. This young guy is getting into non modern music. According to him his parents were turning him onto a lot of 70's Hard Rock, Prog Rock and Psych. I mentioned the term Stoner Rock and he said yeah I'm into that. So I named a few bands aka: SLEEP & ELECTRIC WIZARD and he didn't know about em. But he said he'll check em out.
So with that said welcome to the second full length by GRAVE SPEAKER. This is a one man Stoner Doom project by John Steele who hails from Massachusetts. John Steele is / was the guitarist of the band HIGH N' HEAVY who are also on this label. Musically speaking here's where the above mentioned irony comes in. GRAVE SPEAKER weighs heavy on influences by SLEEP and ELECTRIC WIZARD worship. But not the whole way through.
Now be that as it may I'm not gonna shit on this for two reasons. The first reason is that ELECTRIC WIZARD hasn't released a good album in twenty years. Also is SLEEP really a band anymore? I mean if you just get together to play festivals without releasing new music then you're not in a band anymore.
The second reason I'll give this release it's fair due is because it just sounds cool as fuck. At least John Steele can write some off beat songs that are not of the cliche above mentioned style like "Sword of Life". To me that's the outlier track on here. Add to that the Psych mania of "Tower" which combines great classic 70's Hammond organ with thunderous bass, decent drum work and bluesy guitar lead work.
In the end if you're a connisuer of Stoner Doom then here ya go. This is right up your alley with six cuts worth passing the bong around to friends under the light of a lava lamp. I guess that's a Spencer's Gifts reference. Damm I'm old, you people don't even know what a bong is. Oh well get this release you're like it a lot.
https://www.electricvalleyrecords.com/\
LISTEN HERE:
https://evrecords.bandcamp.com/album/grave-speaker-rays-of-the-emerald-sun
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