#dead meadow

Hashtronaut: No Return (2024)

Hashtronaut ... are you fucking kidding me???

With a name like that I needed just a few streams to open my wallet for this Denver, CO-based stoner rock band, knowing their debut LP, No Return (and its stunning, transparent green with yellow and blue splatter wax), had already locked up a reservation on VinylSpinning when April 20th (a.k.a. 420, Cannabis Culture Day) rolled around.

Even more serendipitous was learning that Hashtronaut were playing The Cobra, a small club right here in Nashville, this past Tuesday on a four-band bill completed by local head-bangers Dead Runes, Karma Vulture, and Electric Python -- all for the princely sum of $10.

It felt like 1997 all over again!

So does Hashtronaut's music; or did you think I would have stayed up past my bedtime (on a weeknight, no less!) if these stoned space-farers didn't deliver the musical goods to back up their titular genius and visual presentation?

Just keep in mind that, in a contradiction of its title, No Return is in fact a purely nostalgic exercise and that there's literally ZERO innovation at hand; even the anti-marijuana dialog sampled from '50s and '60s propaganda films have been used elsewhere before.

But well-written standouts like "Rip Wizard" (whose chorus shouts "Smoking it all"), "Carcinogen," "Dead Cloud," and "Dweller" offer doomy, space-themed stoner rock of the highest caliber, reminiscent of vintage Acrimony, Orange Goblin, and Lowrider.

Heck, my biggest complaint is that the fabulous "Hex" should have lasted ten minutes instead of just two!

Finally, I'll praise Daniel Smith (ex-Alamo Black) for the melancholy, haunted strain in his voice -- the kind reserved only for those of us who have been lost in space -- plus he can also roar like an alien beast on "Cough it Up" and "Lung Ruiner." The instrumental "Marsquake" (a sequel to the non-album early track "Moonquake") and a thirty-second thrashing called "Blast Off" bring No Return to an end after barely 41 minutes, but these days I'd rather be left wanting more than stuffed to the gills.

And the sum of all this is: Hashtronaut offer much more than just a clever moniker and irresistible packaging, so I'll be waiting eagerly for their next musical mission (and Nashville show) into the stoner rock void.

More Stoner Rock & Doom: Acrimony’s Tumuli Shroomaroom, The Atomic Bitchwax’s The Atomic Bitchwax, Belzebong’s Sonic Scapes & Weedy Grooves, Bigelf’s Cheat the Gallows, Black Capricorn’s Born Under the Capricorn, Black Rainbows’ Hawkdope, Blue Heron’s Ephemeral, Bongripper’s Satan Worshipping Doom, Bongzilla’s Stash, Cavity’s Supercollider, Ché’s Sounds of Liberation, Clutch’s Earth Rocker, Dead Meadow’s Dead Meadow, Dopethrone’s Hochelaga, Dozer's Drifting in the Endless Void, Earthride’s Earthride EP, Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone, Eternal Elysium’s Spiritualized D, Fu Manchu’s No One Rides for Free, The Glasspack’s Powderkeg, Goatsnake’s Goatsnake Vol. 1, Green Druid’s Ashen Blood, The Heads’ Mao Tinitus EP, The Hidden Hand’s Mother Teacher Destroyer, House of Broken Promises’ Using the Useless ...

:::: DEAD MEADOW ::::

::: Get Up On Down ::::

(btw the... the things in "()"s are not part of the song titles. just my own emotions regarding the songs)

(was gonna include some songs like "vampire" by olivia rodrigo but ain't no way it would sweep too hard)

(also pls listen to all of these)

I would include more but perhaps it was never meant to be

Dead Meadow: Force Form Free (Blues Funeral Recordings, 2022)