#novadriver

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 ...

Solarized: Driven (2001)

This twenty-year-old sophomore LP from New Jersey’s Solarized didn’t win any awards or top year-end polls, but its high-decibel cacophony and radioactive cover art (straight out of Mad Max!) elicit fond memories of the all-too-brief stoner rock boom of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.

Almost a decade prior, vocalist and guitarist Jim Hogan and drummer Regina Satana had made up the rhythm section of industrial rockers Daisycutter, who were led by fellow Red Bank residents (and Monster Magnet associates) Tim Cronin and Ed Mundell.

But I was oblivious to all this until I heard 1999’s excellent “Nebula Mask” on one stoner rock sampler or another, then chased down Solarized’s debut, Neanderthal Speedway, featuring second guitarist Pete Hauschild and future Halfway to Gone bassist Lou Gorra.

Both of them were gone (replaced by Dave Topolenski and Mike Fiore, respectively) before Driven was committed to tape, but Solarized’s sonic boom remained essentially unchanged: turbo-charged road-ragers spiked with space rock vibes and topped with Hogan’s hollow barks, vaguely reminiscent of Rob Zombie.

Highlights range from souped up drag-racers like “Dig the Ride,” “Chrome Shop” and “Firefight,” to lysergic power chord dino-stomps like “Born of Fire,” “Box Full of Dirt” and “World Without End,” but to call any of them groundbreaking or unique would be misleading.

Indeed, the only track here that deviates from standard stoner rock stock is a one-minute hardcore blast through The Damned’s “Stab Your Back,” which tries to imagine the Ramones as ‘90s stoner rockers, but that’s about it in terms of surprises.

Instead, and like I said at the start, Solarized didn’t win any prizes for fresh ideas or even writing transcendent songs within well-established parameters, so as the interest in stoner rock waned and record labels shifted their budgets elsewhere, the group quietly closed shop after just two LPs.

So don’t go running out on my account to find a copy of Driven, but if you, like me, harbor a nostalgic soft spot for this exciting period, filled with retro-rocking bands without a care for commercial care in the world, then Solarized will scratch that itch.   

Lowrider: Ode to Io (2000)

This timely, long overdue, 20th anniversary reissue from Blues Funeral Recordings revived one of the more divisive, guilty pleasure stoner rock releases of its day: Lowrider’s Ode to Io, and here’s what all the controversy was about ...

One of many pretenders to the stoner rock throne vacated by Kyuss, this Swedish quartet was alternately praised and condemned by critics for resembling nothing short of the second coming of those desert rock pioneers, whose every sonic hallmark they mimicked with eerie, almost suspicious perfection.

As I explained at the time in the All-Music Guide, Peder Bergstrand (vocals, bass), Ole Hellquist (vocals, lead guitar), Niclas Stålfors (guitar) and Andreas Eriksson (drums) announced themselves via a pair of 1998 split-CDs with fellow stoners, Nebula and Sparzanza (said tracks are included in this reissue).

Fast-forward a couple of years, and Lowrider were bringing their unusually focused songwriting talents (a rarity in this genre; why do you think they call it stoner rock?) to MeteorCity, whose founder, Jadd Schickler, would launch Blues Funeral many years later, so there’s the connection.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves ...

Back in 2000, excellent Ode to Io cuts like “Flat Earth,” “Dust Settlin’” and “Anchor” were rife with the auditory signposts (crushing riffs, monster grooves, spacey interludes, heavy/light dynamics) pointing directly to Kyuss, and making it all but impossible for even Lowrider’s biggest supporters to ignore. 

The only notable exception to be found was the slow-grooving “Riding Shotgun” ... and that one sounded just like Fu Manchu, so Lowrider clearly couldn’t seem to transcend the long shadow of their influences. 

Be that as it may, thunderous riff-rides like “Caravan,” “Convoy V” and “Saguaro” (pretty sure there are no cacti in Sweden) were equally impossible to resist, and they have honestly withstood the test of time better than most anything released back in the day by Nebula, Clutch or even Fu Manchu.

There, I said it ... wrote it ... whatever!

So put aside your prejudices, ye lovers of ‘90s-style stoner/desert/space rock, and give Lowrider a chance; after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and this is imitation of the highest caliber -- including the six bonus tracks added to this reissue, my favorite being their odd tribute to Australian comedian “David William Hughes.”

Now I need to find some time to investigate the reunited band’s sophomore album, Refractions, which preceded this reissue in 2019, and surely represents one of the longest gaps between first and second albums in recent memory.

The Atomic Bitchwax: The Atomic Bitchwax II (2000)

Following the enthusiastic response to their eponymous debut album, stoner rocker power trio The Atomic Bitchwax promptly raced back into the studio and emerged with this obviously titled, and frankly anticlimactic follow-up.

There, I said it!

That’s what happens when a semi-casual jam between friends “graduates” to a more serious professional endeavor -- as was the case with this one-time side-project for Monster Magnet lead guitarist Ed Mundell, ex-Godspeed bassist Chris Kosnick, and former Solace drummer Keith Ackerman -- expectations are raised and pressure grows to deliver something special.

And Bitchwax II was by no means crap, but it frankly wasn’t great: bursting out of somebody’s basement (or possibly their garage) in scenic, seaside Long Branch, New Jersey packed with high-intensity, low-hook retro-rockers like “Forty-Five,” “Play the Game” and “Marching on the Skulls of the Dead.” 

In fact, I count just two five-star performances: “Cast Aside Your Masks” (no chance, mister, there’s a pandemic going on!) and closing instrumental, “Liquor Queen,” but keep in mind that this basically builds a song atop the red-hot guitar intro from Buffalo’s 1973 classic “Sunrise (Come My Way).”

Far more damning (and indicative of an exceedingly rushed writing and recording process), if you ask me, was the presence of five -- FIVE! -- instrumentals out of a total ten tracks!

As fabulous a shredder as he was, not even Mundell could keep things interesting on so many wordless exercises, which included frenzied opener “Ice Pick Freak,” the organ-enhanced “The Cloning Chamber,” and the very stoned, laid-back “Smokescreen,” featuring a guesting Warren Haynes of The Allman Brothers Band, Govt. Mule, etc. (*)

Having said all that, in my original All-Music Guide review, I insisted that “in a sea of retro-rocking stoner bands, the Bitchwax still stood out as one of the genre’s most promising new entries.”

So much for that prediction ... though they promptly returned in 2002 with the seven-track Spit Blood EP, both song quality and Ed’s commitment kept slipping, so Kosnick and Ackerman would soon be forced to carry on with Core guitarist Finn Ryan, while Mundell refocused on Monster Magnet.

By 2008, Ackerman had been replaced by Bob Pantella (ex-Raging Slab, Novadriver, etc.) and when Garrett Sweeny stepped in for Ryan in 2018, all three active members of The Atomic Bitchwax were suddenly, ironically also employed by Monster Magnet, which no longer featured Mundell ... go figure.

* I once smoked some of Warren’s pot, because he lived next door to a friend of mine on New York City’s Lower East Side, and it was so strong I literally couldn’t move or speak for an hour.

Ramases: Space Hymns (1971)

One of my favorite summer reads, Strange Stars (pictured above) chronicled the surprisingly frequent intersection of popular music and science fiction, going well beyond Ziggy Stardust’s obvious and sizable contribution to this interdisciplinary fusion, to the delight of interdisciplinary NERDS like myself.

The book diligently covered everyone from Hawkwind to UFO, Pink Floyd to Parliament, Kraftwerk to Klaus Nomi, merely using Bowie’s career launch via “Space Oddity” and 1980 Major Tom redux via “Ashes to Ashes” as convenient bookends to this surprisingly extensive (and still ongoing) interaction between musical and scientific escapism.

And, among the most obscure of all bands cited by author Jason Heller, was Ramases -- ostensibly a pseudonym for English singer and space cadet Kimberley Barrington Frost, who, in 1968, claimed to have been visited by the Pharaoh Ramesses, told he was the Pharaoh's reincarnation, and instructed to shave his head, start wearing colorful robes, and launch a musical career.

A few unsuccessful singles followed, but Frost’s luck improved once he was paired with future 10CC members Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme (the latter pair are better known to children of the ‘80s for their one-hit-wonder “Cry”).

And when I learned that 1971’s Space Hymns was released through the iconic Vertigo label, adorned with captivating Roger Dean cover art (*) and I simply had to track down this 1980 reissue and ship it all the way from Germany, mid-Pandemic.

Unfortunately, the music contained within is just about the least compelling piece of the Ramases story ...

Heller describes it as “haunting and exquisitely sad,” but it’s not nearly sad or haunting enough for me -- though I agree with his assessment of its “post-psychedelic eccentricity,” meshing futuristic space adventures with Egyptian mythology, universal truths with personal introspection.

None of which infused significant musical distinction into esoteric folk-prog like “Life Child,” “And the Whole World,” and “Earth People,” let alone narcoleptic mantras like “Hello Mister,” “Molecular Delusion” (sitar included) and “You’re the Only One.”

My favorite numbers -- the ones with a little more meat on the bone, as it were -- would be the cryptic “Quasar One,” the almost bluesy “Balloon,” the lyrically incongruent (but musically sound) “Jesus Come Back,” and the backwards-masked, electronics-spiked “Journey to the Inside” (think Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?” in zero gravity). 

By the time the latter wraps things up with party banter in which Frost, I presume, points out the comparable ratios of interstellar and molecular distances, Space Hymns feels like something out of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but then, what else should we expect?

At least Ramases’ ensuing professional trajectory followed a predictable course, by quickly veering off course, and crashing to Earth after a 1975 sophomore LP called Glass Top Coffin, after which an increasingly despondent Frost took his own life in December of 1976, at age 42.

No doubt, he was bound for the stars ...

* I couldn’t afford to spend a BEEELLION dollars on an original 1970s pressing of Space Hymns, which revealed the full, six-paneled glory of Dean’s cover painting (see above), along with a hilarious reverse-side photo of Frost and his wife Dorothy Laflin.

Fu Manchu: King of the Road (2000)

Stoner rockers Fu Manchu found a new songwriting gear on 1997’s absolutely stellar The Action is Go, but ‘99’s ensuing Godzilla’s/Eatin’ Dust was really just two EPs crammed together, so ...Go’s righteous successor was in fact 2000’s nearly as impressive King of the Road.

The proof is here for all to see -- or rather, hear -- in the potent, fully realized boogie bashers crafted for this LP by singer/guitarist Scotti Hill, lead guitarist Bob Balch, bassist Brad Davis, and drummer Brant Bjork, formerly of the venerable Kyuss.

Don’t let Bjork’s presence mislead you, though, because, even more than its occasionally space-traveling predecessor, King of the Road’s big grooves and bigger riffs are all pure Fu Manchu -- custom-built to tear down desert highways towards an infinite sunset. 

See if you can recognize a theme here, as “Hell on Wheels,” “Over the Edge,” “Boogie Van,” “Drive” and the title track all accelerate (and celebrate) life behind the wheel, or, more specifically, vintage custom van culture as reflected in the 1960s Ford E-Series pictured on the album’s cover.

Another doom-laden highlight called “Hotdoggin’” is a little harder to decipher (could be sexual double entendre?), and Fu Manchu do circle back to another favorite subject -- skateboarding -- on “Blue Tile Fever,” and then they have a laugh on the exceptionally stoned “Weird Beard.” 

A decent, if unspectacular cover of Devo’s “Freedom of Choice” rounded off the original release, but this vinyl reissue blessed us with the smoking hot outtake “Breathing Fire” and the mysterious “Hanglider,” which I still can’t find an MP3 for, even now.

So, again, feel free to race past the musical left turn that was Godzilla’s/Eatin’ Dust, but rest assured that you won’t be disappointed with the now 20-year-old King of the Road, which also paved the way for the following year’s equally awesome California Crossing.

Spaceslug: Lemanis (2016)

I found Spaceslug on BandCamp, took one look at the fantastical alien world depicted on the cover of their debut album, Lemanis, and knew I simply had to have it!

That didn’t change after I streamed its songs online and recognized them as, not some exotic brand of Mollusk Metal, but an all-too-familiar stoner/psych/space/doom/sludge recipe that’s been done a thousand times by everyone from Kyuss to Los Natas.

What can I say ... I just love this sound.

Problem was, Lemanis’ original vinyl pressing had long since sold out, so I had to track down this used copy in Greece, of all places, after months of patiently stalking Discogs, but here it is, so let’s take off!

Despite their unusual home base of Wroclaw, Poland, Spaceslug’s cosmonauts clearly studied all of the right albums, because the opening tandem of “Proton Lander” and “Hypermountain” ride hallucinatory waves of surging power chord distortion.

Even more lysergic licks, dredged from the best of acid trips, kick off “Supermassive,” and though “Galectelion” floats away to nowhere, “Grand Orbiter” refocuses in the best possible way, capped by weed-dazed vocals that fit the mood just perfectly.

“Quintessence” is another dreamy interlude, and then we’re into the nine-minute title cut, home to some of the album’s doomiest riffs, and a fitting final mission in Spaceslug’s maiden voyage.

So bring your bong, but not your salt-shaker (slugs and salt don’t mix), and if you’re looking for more Polish stoner rock and doom, might I recommend the spectacularly named Belzebong?

Novadriver: Deeper High (2005)

Novadriver's long, four-year hiatus between first and second albums was a rather strange one ... 

Vocalist/organist Mark Miers effectively quit the group to pursue other interests, presumably found them less interesting than expected, and then rejoined in time to complete an album -- 2005's Deeper High -- that sounds as if he never left in the first place! 

Which is just fine, given that the Detroit natives’ first outing, 2001’s Void, had set a very good precedent; standing out of a increasingly stale early ‘00s stoner rock scene by brusquely shaking (not stirring) equal doses of classic rock, space rock, psychedelic rock, and their hometown’s vibrant proto-punk legacy.

Instantly foot-taping nuggets like “You Want Yours, You Want Mine,” (an ideal, slow-building opener); “Roll You” (a brutal aural mugging); the memorable title track (with plenty of soloing room for guitarist Billy Reedy), and “Turn to Stone” (simply a timeless classic rocker) come souped-up for maximum Milky Way-exploring enjoyment. 

And even though it eases off the thrusters considerably, semi-ballad “Dark Aftermath” is unconventional enough to keep the listener interested until the dirty garage-psych charge of "Machine” can power up again ahead of the downright spectacular “Bury Me Alive.”

My only knock, if you can call it one, is that easy flowing space-groovers like “Stars After Stars,” “Blackout” and “Whiteout” (see what they did there?) sound a tad derivative of Monster Magnet, but Novadriver’s fluid songwriting chops make it easy to forgive this, and leave one wanting more.

Alas, sadly, bassist and key songwriter Jim Anders suddenly passed away shortly after Deeper High's recording, and Novadriver was never heard from again.

p.s. -- Some of these words originate in my All-Music Guide review of Deeper High.