Heavy Water Experiments: Heavy Water Experiments Review

The Heavy Water Experiments self titled album, is pure stoner rock. You can almost watch the dark and distorted music floating through the haze of a desolate and scorching desert. The problem however, is that the music is overly catering to stoner rock, to the point where they make the pioneers of the genre, like Kyuss, look like they were doing it wrong.

Where bands like Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age have some kick to their music, the Heavy Water Experiments sound like they were pushing for dull music. Many of the songs sound like they’re bound in a tight circle, just constantly rotating, but never breaking outside to explore new territory. The dark and ominous distortion and fuzz of the instruments and vocals becomes monotonous due to the flatness of the songs, rarely reaching out for heavier sounds or more emotion. Vocalist Melbye slowly pronunciates each syllable of every word making it overly relaxed and borring. Most of the album lacks much of a melody, but there are a select few songs which heave enough of a melody to be memorable, like the track, "Anodyne".

I was hoping after repeated listens to find something more to this album, but it is rather mundane, never breaking out of the spacey and haunting mellowness which drones from start to end. I really wanted to like this album, but it is plagued by monotony. If this album could have gotten a little kick in the ass then maybe I would be listening to the music I was expecting.

Grade: C-