perfidy

There is a passage in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting that goes:

Spud turns and says something to Renton, who can't hear him above a song by the Farm, which, Renton considers, like all their songs, is listenable only if you're E'd out of your box, and if you're E'd out of your box it would be a waste listening to The Farm, you'd be better off at some rave freaking out to heavy techno-sounds.

New Orleans stoner-rock trio Suplecs are a bit like this. On one hand they are heavy and fast. On the other hand the guitars sound like they were recorded in a closet, their riffs are boring, and their overall vibe recalls all the million stoner-metal bands I've already heard. And for my money if you have to get high to appreciate something, there's no there, there in the first place.

For the most part this is the way I feel about stoner-rock in general, or whatever it is the kids are calling it these days. I remember a few years ago when the Queens of the Stone Age first came up hearing from all quarters how great and original they were, how great their songs were, how heavy they sounded and so on. Then I heard the band and they were ok, sure, but nothing to write home about. Then I realized that most of the people who had been crowing about QOTSA so hard were also habitual stoners: mystery solved. Since then a good handful of similar bands have crossed my path: Kyuss, Nashville Pussy, Fu Manchu, and Gov't Mule, just to name a few that come to mind. Some of them are really good no matter your chemical status, but I always have the sneaking suspicion that they would be better if you were too high to see: a bad sign, for my money.

Suplecs don't seem to have figured out yet what kind of band they want to be, and it shows. "Tsunami," the first song on their latest album, Powtin' On The Outside, Pawty On The Inside lifts its riff from an old Scorpions song. They even want you to know it, since the first word of each verse is "Blackout!" just like the Germans wrote it. The very next track, "Black Cloud" contains the stanza,

If life is a bowl of cherries, how come I'm in the pits?
If life is a bowl of cherries, smells like shit 'n' I'm eatin' it.
Cuz I've been feedin' it, now I gotta deal with it."

What? Are these guys kidding?

About two thirds of Powtin' is this kind of goofy thrash metal, but a few songs switch things up by including either sincere ('serious') angst-laden lyrics and metal screams or Gov't Mule style instrumental space jams. "Gotta Pain," alternates metal screams with generic impassioned teenage alienation, "End of Me" is a barstool blooze revved up to 200 RPM, and "Cities of the Dead" is a six-minute jam instrumental that builds and builds but never really comes into focus or gets anywhere. On "Welcome Home" and the finale "Meatballs and Spaghetti" the band combine all of these into one unwieldy whole.

After a half dozen listens I keep expecting the various ideas swirling around to take shape and turn into something with momentum, but they never really do. Choruses don't quite come together, drama never unfolds, and the ever-present sludgy riffs spin their wheels in the mud. The most compelling music on the album is the untitled bonus track, which is about three and a half minutes of fairly groovy jamming; nothing special in and of itself, but far more accessible and coherent than any of the ten official songs that came before.

If Suplecs figure out which thing they want to do well, they probably have one or two solid albums in them. But Powtin' On The Inside, Pawty On The Outside is nothing special, a half-baked (ooh! A pun!) mess of sludgy thrash, noodly jams, and odds and ends that sound too much like other bands to really make much of an impression. I don't really smoke the reefer, so I have no idea what changes if you were to get baked and give Powtin' a spin. But I do know that if that were to happen, there are many albums I'd much rather have around than this one.

This post also appears at blogcritics.org.