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Connoisseur - Stoner Justice

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    Ian Jane
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  • Connoisseur - Stoner Justice



    Connoisseur - Stoner Justice
    Released by: Tankcrimes Records
    Released on: June 9th, 2015.
    Purchase From Amazon

    Hey kids, do you like weed? The guys in Connoisseur do. In fact, they wrote a whole album dedicated to it and they called that album Stoner Justice. This album started life awhile back as an EP. You can stream that whole EP right here:



    This new version has been re-mastered by Dan Randall at Mammoth Sound Mastering and not only that, it's been expanded to fourteen tracks. These additional tracks include a killer live set that was specifically recorded during the band's performance at the Tankcrimes Takeover that took place at 924 Gilman on February 13th, 2015 to be included on this release (but which weren't included with the promo materials sent for review so you have to use your imagination and figure out for your own if they're any good or not).

    But let's get down to what really matters here - the music. These guys are understandably lumped in with the stoner rock movement a lot, and that's fair to be sure, but there's a definite thrash/hardcore/punk influence on this record that's impossible to ignore. The record starts off with Circle Of Heads, a three minute rager that lays down the roadmap for what's to come - drugs, sludge, noise, anger… it's beautiful in its aggressiveness and its unbridled insanity. Carlos, the vocalist, is just all over the place here while Dan the guitar man keeps things down-tuned but simultaneously thrashy. Lyle on drums? A literal behemoth, a powerhouse behind that kid.

    Pot Hole (ha!) is up next, and at less than a minute long it's a hardcore style doomy breakdown about smoking all the weed and getting high all day long. The Camper is also about smoking weed and it's twenty-five seconds long. There's a definite theme here, just look at the album cover artwork. No Dice, the fourth track, is also twenty-five seconds long and it's about someone showing up without bringing any weed. I think.

    The fifth track is where these guys show what they're really capable of. Entitled Full Blown Marijuana Addict, it's just short of four minutes and it's pure, unadulterated sludge in the best sense of the term. It's got a serious groove behind it, as it should, but it's heavy as fuck and it's super well played in terms of technique, production and sound. There's a great bit where it goes completely slow and they let the drums do their thing for a bit that is almost hypnotic. I Am The Weed continues in that vein. Though it's shorter at less than two minutes it's doomy and sludgy, and dark and… about smoking weed. “I smoke so much that I think I am turning into marijuana!” Carlos goes off on this one, his vocals steal the show. (Destroy The) Smoke Machines, that'd be track seven for those keeping count, is a little less than five minutes and it's another serious slab of stoner metal but it takes a bit of time to get there with its acoustic guitar and drum cymbal opening. Thirty seconds in though? Carlos just comes ripping through the speakers with some death metal style vocals and all bets are off.




    Sweet Buddies speeds things up a bit, but not a ton. It's quick at just over a minute, and it's a bit more of a blaster than the sludgier tracks that came before it but you still get stuck trying to wade through it if that makes sense. Brick Weed is twenty-three seconds and as such, it's over before you realize it's playing and Machine Gun Grenade is nineteen seconds, so the same thing applies. There's a bit of an early D.R.I. thing going on with the song lengths here but there's something to be said for brevity.

    Orc Summer returns the band to 'longer song' territory as it hits the two minute mark but it's the fastest, dirtiest, nastiest thing on the record with an absolutely blistering chorus. This one probably goes over really well live and it's the closest they come to what most would consider traditional hardcore on this record. New Amsterdam slows things down a bit but the tempo shifts in this song are unpredictable and keep it interesting and appropriately weird. Smells Like Teen Dipshit puts the album back into grindcore territory, a wild scream making up most of the vocals here, all of which are pretty much indecipherable (except for one guy yelling out 'SMOKE WEED' towards the end). The album ends with the epic Ashes, a track past the seven minute mark that sees the band go full on instrumental here, save for some samples about drug use and the perils thereof. It starts off flow, somber even. Those samples stop about a minute and a half in and things get heavier and build from there. It's an interesting way to end an album that's rowdy and brash, because this is, if not quite a jam, a bit more musically diverse than anything else on the record.

    This is great stuff. If you're into metal, doom, stoner rock, thrash, punk or just like heavy or aggressive music in whatever form or genre suits your mood, check this out. I won't pretend to have heard of this band before I was given the opportunity to check out the album for review purposes but I'm glad I did. They do what they do incredibly well and this is one that will get a lot of replay.

    Check out the lyric video for Orc Summer!


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