I have listened to Blues for the Red Sun so many times that it is basically ingrained in me, yet I never manged to get to another Kyuss record. I also heard about this record. A lot. And I heard it was their best. So I approached this record with too high expectations and and real fondness for (and familiarity with) its predecessor. So that didn’t go well.

I am generally a music fan who wants bands to “progress” in some kind of meaningful artistic way. But there are lots of bands that don’t do this and there are many bands that don’t really need to do this. Given how much I like this kind of music, I shouldn’t be disappointed that it sounds a lot like the previous record, I should be happy. Right? Right. I should like this more than I currently want to.

I listened to this record on a streaming service, so the CD sequencing joke/prank was totally lost on me. I have no idea how that would have affected my listening experience but I know that it is something I would have absolutely loved when I was, like, 18.

Kyuss does their thing very, very well. They arguably do it better than any of the other “stoner” bands of their era, at least of those that I’ve heard. Their sound is one I can listen to ad nauseum. But I’m a long way from figuring out whether I like this record less, the same or more than Blues for the Red Sun, simply because I have heard that record way too many times.

As an aside, it’s funny how being so (relatively) conventional can sound so unique given a particular era’s context.

Eventually I’ll give it an 8/10