Member:
Son of Nothing
Date:
9/4/2003
Kyuss (pronounced Chi-us) were one of the coolest bands of the 90s. Though the Melvins and Mudhoney were making heavy sludgy grunge, these guys had the definitive "stoner" sound and were heavily influential to the revival of what later came to be known as "stoner" rock, an unabashed chemical-influenced fuzzed out form of Sabbath worship. Their earliest work, Sons of Kyuss, is a rarity and is hard to find. The official first album, Wretch, found their music to be in a punked out, faster rocking fashion. Blues for the Red Sun is their most influential, definitive, heavy-as-hell album. They had a mountain to climb in order to top it and they did it with aplomb (or a bong) with Sky Valley, an epic journey through a pleasure soaked, doors-of-perception-cleansed mind. Blues for the Red Sun and Sky Valley capture Kyuss at their representative sound that could be only explained as prime Sabbath jamming with Blue Cheer amidst a volcanic eruption in the background.
Vocalist John Garcia sounds like Ronnie James Dio crossed with Dickie Peterson. The driving forces to the sound are the tremendous bass playing of ex-Obsessed man Scott Reeder, the stoner-rock Hendrix - Josh Homme, and solid drummer Brant Bjork. Welcome to Sky Valley is three suites of skull-fucking desert rock that gets better either under chemical influence or with each listen. The music flows like lava thanks to the amplified guitars and the grooves recall Deep Purple at their prime, only slower.
The first suite begins with the flowing "Gardenia" and immediately the guitars mess up with your mind, flowing inside those neurons till they resonate with the music. The lyrics don't give away the key to the absolute truth or solve your life problems...A sample:
"power booster, I'm talkin' to god and more
crank it up and above my head
smell my shit eatin grin on the skids of my world
six hundred sixty six miles per hour
hear a purrin motor
and she's a burnin' fuel
push it over baby
oh makin' love un to you"
The bass playing is pure Geezer Butler, settling down to a neat jam with the drums somewhere in the middle until the vocals hit back with the guitar. "Asteroid" is a relatively calm mid-section with the bass audible in the forefront as usual. "Supa Scoopa..." is another groovy rocker with a totally cool bass jam at the end to prepare you for the second epic that starts out in a funky manner with Garcia begging on his knees in "100 degrees". "Space Cadet" is a masterpiece that is entirely acoustic and displays a longing for the moment of bliss to arrive:
"Waiting is hard
Fucking takes so long
Draped in sun - hands in sand
Earth acid cleanses me, cleanses me clean
But the world, it never comes
It never comes
It never comes
It never comes"
"Demon Cleaner" is the most popular song or section from this album. The thudding sound of the drums signals brain damage and the guitar sound tugs at your cerebrum.
"I've got the demons in me,
I've got to flush them all away,
I feel the demons rage,
I must clean them all awayyyyyyyyyyyy
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah..."
Tool covered this song live.
The third suite is a psychedelic tour-de-force starting quite fast and going into another one of those revelatory jamming and ending with a reprise and explosion. It flows and flows till the celebratory final jam that decreases in intensity towards the end of the trip.
"Feed my lungflower seed,
You are gone and now I'm free (I'm free - yeah),
Strip me down to nothing,
Fuck me will free the vulture (make it fly),
Burning my brain and burning my teeth (in the sun),
100ø and burning my need (make it fly),
Live the love that I have for you,
Taking you life for want you (free)"
Once you're out of it, there's the hidden track that's just for intended fun..."Honey you know that I can't lick my doo" or something like that.
A drug free psychedelic experience. A hard rock monster of the 90s. A modern document of the free love era. Sky Valley deserves all these accolades and more. Brant Bjork left the band after this album and they could manage only one other release. Some of the members found success later with Queens of the Stone Age and Garcia has been involved with neat projects like Slo Burn and Unida. All of them have another mountain to climb. A super-sensory benchmark that is Sky Valley. Welcome! You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!
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