Metal Reviews

Being a big Queens of The Stone Age fan, I was wondering if Homme and Oliveri's original band Kyuss was worth checking out. If so, what is their best album, and how do they compare to the Queens?

and the circus leaves town is, imo, their best


but then, I'm not a big fan of either QOTSA or Kyuss... they were like more doomy & psychedelic than QOTSA so you might like it

"Welcome to Sky Valley" is very good.

Kyuss were really good, but I can't stand listening to that lo-fi production. It's just horrible. Scott Reeder, though, is probably one of the best bass players alive!

I like "Blues for the Red Sun" a lot. It's kinda similar to QOTSA but much dirtier production and more heavy stoner riffs. Also, I think John Garcia is a very good vocalist, and he sounds perfect over this kind of music.

Yet ANOTHER band I keep meaning to get into. Apparently, everything after Wretch is great.

EDIT: And Wretch is great too!

They sound very similar to Fu Manchu, but I prefer Fu Manchu anyday, especially ''start the machine.''

Kyuss is pretty cool. I'm a big fan of Welcome to Sky Valley. It's pretty much the gold standard for stoner metal. Hell, even Tool covered a song off that album (and did a much better job with it than Kyuss did initially, IMO.)

You should also check out Unida which was another side-project of Kyuss.

I'm also a big advocate of High on Fire now for taking the Kyuss sound and making it more metallified.

And on a final note, "Weird Beard" by Fu Manchu is probably the funniest song to smoke weed while listening too. You can't help yourself when you break out into hysterics.

Have any of you heard Eagles Of Death Metal? Funny stuff.

My favorite is Welcome to Sky Valley than Wreck.


ps. And of course Kyuss is very worth of checking out as they started the whole stonner rock thing. You wont be dissapointed.

I would also recommend Desert Sessions 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 as those are imho the best stuff ever done in the stonner rock genre and together with QOTSA/BEAVER 10" split. You can thank me later.

I just bought Blues For The Red Sun yestarday and listened to it twice. I must say, this is definitely different. I really like Josh Homme's bluesy guitar melodies (probably some of the catchiest guitar work I'd ever heard), and the album does have a very laid back, relaxed atmosphere. My problem with it lies in the production, which (to put it bluntly) sucks. I really hope they remaster the album sometime - or may be I just need to listen to it a little more to get used to it.

Either way, excellent album. I'll definitely be checking out Kyuss's later two albums (Sky Valley and Circus) a little later.

I could never get past the production. There are some great tunes, but they sound horrible. I saw them live opening for White Zombie back in the day and they sounded amazing! You put on the CD and it doesn't even come close to that same sonic impact, not even remotely close. They need to remix and remaster those albums, remastering them will just make the crap production louder.

And for the person who said Kyuss started stoner rock...check your references because they lied to you. Hehe.

Kyuss is about bass, foo!

.. And the Circus Leaves Town sounds fuckin great in my car stereo. Eyesore, you can't tell me you don't have a chest rattling sub in your car.

No, I have a truck with a nice system, but nothing ghetto like that. I live in a ghetto town, I don't want something like that in my truck to give people a reason to try and break in. That's why I have black rims!

And I don't care if it's about bass, it sounds like ass. Haha.

I'm paranoid about that too, so I still use the factory CD player (hooked to amps via live input). From the outside, there is no way to tell what I've got hidden in there.