Australian rockers Full Tone Generator are back and they’ve
brought a friend from the Californian desert with them this time, Mr Nick
Oliveri. Listening to Nick talk about this on Kyuss World Radio a few weeks
back, you know you’re getting something special here.
Stoner Rock mixed with Punk Rock, that is short, sharp, like
a kick in the head, and if you’re wondering what side of the pond the Punk Rock
will favour? Think GBH, The Damned and Sub-Humans.
Without A Sound starts with the riff, the slight feedback of
the instruments plugging in, the classic drum roll build up, Nick’s trademark
scream and we’re off. Imagine Full Tone Generator removing any effects pedals
and just plugging in and turning it up to eleven. Classic punk rock riffs
pummel you and Nick’s voice sounds even more demonic than normal. The repetitive
riff with added clapping appears a couple of times, like what Nick always did
with Mondo Generator and Queens of the Stone Age, and I dare you not to clap along.
Throw in the odd early 80’s five second guitar solo, and it’s all packed in to
two minutes and three seconds.
Clocking in at less than 2 minutes on If You Want Me, there’s
full on raw riffs from the beginning with slightly more guitar work this time. Nick’s
vocals are abrasive and in your face (like you’d expect anything else?) and the
chorus isn’t something you will be blasting out the car window when you’re
picking the kids up. There’s even a quick punk rock ‘out of control’ solo in
there.
Released between Tuff Cuff Records and Ruined Vibes, there’s
a limited vinyl run of black and orange editions and a couple of deluxe
versions. By the time you read this I expect everything will already be sold
out, so happy hunting.
It had been a few years after the release of V when 2019 saw
the first of a years’ worth of monthly song releases started as the band
re-explored all their instruments from Amphibia Studios in Leicester. From
Birth of a Star to Supernova to El Indio, the 1st of the month
always had you wondering what they had constructed the previous few weeks.
Roll on to 2020 and they’re back to the album format with a
collection of ten songs that they have been working on over the last few years
with the line-up of Mark Buteux, Gavin Searle, Dodge Watson, Tony Heslop and
Lee Madel-Toner.
Monotron’s psychedelic intro layers keyboards upon guitars
and forms something of a 70’s sci-fi backing track. It has a laid back yet
majestic feel to it and spends its 97 seconds building and building into
something special that you know has been too long in coming. I would probably
compare it to seeing a band headline a festival that rarely play live and your
locked into the zone when the lights go down and there’s the magical energy in
the air.
The big opening riff for Ever and Forever slowly rolls in
with thick fuzzy layers of guitar. It only take seconds, but you are already
back sat at the wheel of a dirty old Dodge pick-up, travelling through the
night from town to deserted town, heading into the ass end of nowhere. The riffs
and the drumming feel structured in a robotic space like fashion, which
enhances that repetitive journey into the unknown, and there's still nod to classic early Queens of The Stone Age. The mix of male/female
vocals and use of both voices as instruments (the oooohs and aaaaahs) and
guitar work around the line “where nobody goes, where no one knows” adds to the
mystic of the track. Who knows where the pick-up will end up?
Bad Trip floats in and enters your brain like LSD should do.
A single drum beat and keyboard note lifts you to a level deep in the
sub-conscious before a guitar riff that slides side to side without actually
ending. The vocals overlap and harmonise as they drift in and out and mould
themselves around that guitar without properly showing who they are. As another
keyboard enters, you can feel it pull the guitar in a slightly different
direction as though the trip is turning bad, before everything fades away.
Toxic Heart is like the antidote to Bad Trip with its
positive new beginnings feel to the riff the track is built around. A slow
meandering track that sounds very psychedelic in an English way.
Pigs in Space opens with huge sounding repetitive riffs that
take you off in to a space bound journey before the keyboards swing you away,
then push you back towards the stars. Again the clever use of the voice as an
instrument that drones in and out has you thinking this would fit well on a
Desert Sessions record.
Sicariohas a slow doomy reflective feel to it that sounds
quite haunting, and Brainless is a 3 minute instrumental that shows how good
Leicester’s finest are.
The female vocals that start the layered vocal build up to Murderer
have that feeling of early Monster Magnet and about 2 minutes in the riff kicks
in over the whaling keyboards and it builds to sounding absolutely huge. My
only complaint is that it finishes far too quickly.
I am the Hurricane follows straight on with big stoner rock
riffs that swings between high mountain summits and deep canyon depths. Like it
hurricane, the song slowly rolls and rolls and rolls along.
Closing the record is Fine, a song that could be and
probably should be your favourite hit of the summer. I admit that whenever the
internet radio is playing at home, it’s tuned into a station dedicated to 90’s
alt-rock or grunge, and Fine would fit perfectly in there somewhere. Kicking
off with a warm fuzzy opening riff, before some jangle and then the guitar just
talks to you as the song struts along with a confident swagger. There’s layers
of vocals, keyboards, harmonies and there is a poppy feel to it in the way The
Dandy Warhols have the knack of writing good songs. I dare you not to be
humming the chorus for the rest of the week.
With the first listen, VI clicked with me and it just sounds better and better with every play, and believe me, it’s been played many times this week. VI is The Kings of Frog Island at their finest again which will no doubt please the regulars as well as bring in more listeners. They finally have a live show booked in for later this year which we should all be psyched about and hopefully this pandemic doesn’t bump it again.
Kozmic Artifactz have released VI on vinyl in transparent
blue or a tasty amphibious green/black splatter.
