Sometimes you see a genre name and you think, well, you are just making things up now. But occasionally, very occasionally, when you play the music, you realise that the label is not only perfect for the sound it is attached to, but that no other description would suffice.
So, when faced with a tag such as “Psychedelic Western Doom Rock,” as I am now whilst listening to the new album from The Oil Barons, Grandoise, you realise that sometimes, no matter how outlandish the description, you should at least hear things out. Had I not, I would have missed one of the coolest albums of the moment.
The Oil Barons have it all. “Wizard” wanders between dark-folky interludes and raw rock and roll salvos, the sort of thing that Ronnie James Dio might have written had he not joined Rainbow but instead taken his previous band of blues-rockers, Elf, to their logical conclusion.
And then there is a glorious take on “John Brown’s Body,” which sounds like The Doors time-traveled back 100 years (give or take) and were tasked with writing psychedelic, hard-rock, roots marching songs for the Union army.
“Goddamn Horror Show” is scuzzy, foot on the monitor hard rock, “Vivienne” is a gorgeous, mournful ballad, laced with bluesy interludes and delicate rock motifs, and “Quetzalacatanango” is almost an album in its own right, taking in brooding gothic blues and squalling metal, swampy, hard rock salvos and ambient space rock.
Man, this has made my day. What a great album.
