STONEHEAD (Surreal Liberty) LP/CD
This is what you call bad timing. Not even two weeks after I visited the Stoned From The Underground Festival a package with new "work" arrived at my house which includes the Stonehead album 'Surreal Liberty'. Unfortunatly these guys fell of the edge when deciding what to watch at the festival in Erfurt. If I had known, I would have watched these guys. Especially as I can imagine that their brand of Heavy Rock does work well in the live situation. And I guess the chorus of 'Desert' might have worked especially on that fest. Cause it goes like this: "Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah we're smoking weed every day". No great poetry here, just plain Rock.
Musically these guys mix everything you need for a slab of Heavy Rock. There is some Stoner and a bit Psychedelic, a lot of Southern Heavy Rock and a barking voice that reminds of Phil Anselmo at times, Dave Sherman at others and in generel I would say if you dog yourself some Sixty Watt Shaman, Stonehead should please you. A bit of Punk and Motörhead spices up the sound here and there as well. The drums are too hectic for me sometimes, this speeds up the generel sound of the band. To break up the dense heaviness there is some acoustic guitar driven Rock in the instrumental 'Rise And Fad' as well as a big nod to the current trend in Rock and Hardcore where musicians doing Singer/Songwriter stuff with the song 'Like A Stone'.
My favourite track is 'Bad Soul', where singer Nobbi delivers his most diverse vocal performance, the riffs fall in place just right and the song works out just great in general. The following more laid back Stoner Rocker 'Knock Out' is of similar quality. Not all of this album is though. Nevertheless, the full-length should please anyone into heavy in-your-face (Stoner) Rock with a dense production.
(Thorsten Frahling)