Suggestions
Suggestions
Kyuss gave stoner rock its blueprint. Formed in Palm Desert in 1987 and part of the early-1990s desert rock scene of Southern California, they played sludgy, down-tuned guitar, spacey jams and galloping thrash rhythms. On “Blues for the Red Sun” in 1992 the band settled into a sound that stayed theirs, holding Black Sabbath weight, Blue Cheer fuzz and Hawkwind space rock together under psychedelic flashes and grooves built on a large scale. Fu Manchu play with more swagger and more life than many of the stoner field, keeping to cars, older metal and guitar figures that stay simple while hitting hard. Stoner rock overlaps heavily with stoner metal, especially where doom and heavier riffing move forward, while psychedelic and desert-rock traits remain common on the rock side.
Stuttgart’s BLACK SWIFT built an EP around desert rock, from classic psychedelic stoner rock to a spaghetti-western feel. Boston’s Motel Black mix alt, indie and stoner rock, and their single “Gates” carries bluesy vocals and moody rhythms. CRAETOR weave psych, doom and metal into riff-heavy songs from Western Massachusetts.