Welcome To Sky Valley [CD]

Before Queens Of the Stone Age, Josh Homme and Nick Olivieri were in one of the most influential rock bands of the nineties. That band was Kyuss, and 'Sky Valley' is possibly the best of their albums - although 'Blues For The Red Sun' and '...And The Circus Leaves Town' are damn fine records too.

Criminally ignored by the mainstream music press (unlike QOTSA, who seem to be everyone journalist's band of the moment), Kyuss nevertheless gained a huge underground following, and it was a surprise when they split so suddenly whilst seemingly on the verge of greater success. Apparently, there were internal problems within the band - namely they all hated the singer!

Still, you'd never guess there was friction in the camp whilst listening to this huge slab of stoner metal. The opening track 'Gardenia' fuzzes into view with an immense, snaking riff, and doesn't relent for nearly six minutes before giving way to the spacey 'Asteroid' - which starts with a clean, quiet intro followed by another juggernaut of a riff.

An example of the sheer inventiveness that set Kyuss apart from their peers is heard when bizarre, atonal guitars pop in halfway through a song which has all but broken down into nothing ness. The song then gets faster and faster as it reaches its climax before cutting straight into the best track on the album, the amusingly-titled 'Supa Scoop And Mighty Scoop'.

This monster of a song possesses what must surely be the best metal riff written since Master Of Puppets. John Garcia screams over the top 'Don't try to take me away; Like I can't live without you' - it sounds cheesy but fits the song perfectly. Halfway through the song changes into another garganutan riff with a completely different feel, the rhythm changes on this album are fantastic. If you thought the end of the previous song was odd, just wait until you hear the end of this one!

The rest of the songs are equally impressive, with some variation on show. '100 Degrees', for instance, is a heads down speedburst clocking in at under two and a half minutes in length, whilst 'Space Cadet' is an acoustic song which manages to sound menacing (God know how they pulled that one off). 'Demon Cleaner' is extremely catchy and the majestic closing track 'Whitewater' is sheer class. In fact, the only thing that lets the album down is a rather stupid hidden track at the end which is nothing more than the band pissing about on a hammond organ for a minute and a half. Tedious.

Still, happily locked away at the end of the album you need not concern yourself with it at all. Simply ignore it and concern yourself only with the rest of what is one of the finest rock albums ever released.

This album changed my life.

When I first heard Sky Valley in about 1996 - 97 It was a revelation. A perfect plend of dense, heavy music with melody & riffs that Black Sabbath would kill for. An unpretentious, progressive form of Rock music that swells with raw energy. Nothing else sounded like this at the time although many people have been influenced by the Kyuss sound since. Kyuss should have been huge but were hindered by the fact that they did not fit into the Seattle scene & did very few interviews, photo shoots etc.

The album starts with the monolithic intro riff to 'Gardenia' one of the finest songs Kyuss ever recorded. The album then ebbs & flows in a beautifully structured way, moving from the heavy rocking of tracks 3 & 4 to the gentle, qiuet 'Space Cadet' with ease. Next up - 'Demon Cleaner' a warm but bitter, heavy but ambient song which is the defining moment of the album. 'Odyssey' is an angrier track with a groovy breakdown section & the next 2 tracks round Sky Valley out perfectly. Finally we have ' Whitewater', an epic song which gives me goosebumps every time.

This easily makes it into my all-time top 5 albums. They were the Led Zeppelin of the 90's.

This album is the essence of simple hard, riff-heavy rock, call it `stoner rock' if you will - whatever genre - this will raise the hairs on the back of your neck in a style only the rock gods in the olden days could. This was my first Kyuss album and remains my favourite after going through their discography (which, isn't really much of a feat, it is tragically small). The album's structure is of three pieces, each containing at least three songs, almost creating a medley. At first this structure frustrated me, it wasn't that accessible if I wanted to listen to a part of each long piece, but overall it creates a flow to the album, almost giving it three `movements' each representing different ideas and musically diverse.

The first piece kicks of with `Gardenia' through a powerful muddy, down-tuned riff which progresses through different variations until Garcia's vocals kick in. His voice is brutally raw yet melodic at the same time. I've read some reviewers complaining about his lack of variation, but to me his voice is just perfect, complementing the heavy old-school guitars. `Gardenia' is a mighty opening blow, full of crunching riffs that engulf the listener in a thick haze of distortion. `Asteroid' is a superb instrumental, something Kyuss like to throw into thei albums. It's somewhat progressive in style, built around a simple theme with some mighty crescendos thanks to Homme's advanced song structuring.

`Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoopa' and `100 degrees' are typical Kyuss rockers, great riffs and melodies. `Space Cadet' then follows halfway through piece two, and what a tremendous surprise it is, an utterly beautiful moving ballad. The guitar playing is amongst the finest on the album and Garcia's vocals are, I would argue, diverse to the usual delivery - soft and tender. The piece washes over in its seven-minute entirety almost too quickly, fortunately though it leads into my other favourite of the album, the driving `Demon Cleaner'. On this one Garcia's vocals have a dreamy aspect to them, recalling the tripped out desert feel. Along with Homme's relentless riffing, this song is simply stunning.

Piece three is probably my least favourite out of the three, but is still a thundering tour-de-force of riffs and melodies. `Odyssey' is one of the most aggressive, confrontational pieces on the album, highlighted by Garcia's overwhelming delivery, launching himself into the lines `once you return from the belly of the beast/ you're never quite the same'. `Whitewater' is a fine way to close the album, a personal highlight for me. It slowly builds to a monumental riff.

This album is quite simply powerful, `listen without distraction' it says in the liner notes, I wouldn't worry about that, this is truly engulfing stuff. For fans of old school rock and metal, and fans of metal in general, try this band immediately.