Rex Brown

Smoke On This STEAMHAMMER/SPV

Ex-Pantera bassist hoists the doobie high.

Rex Brown’s debut solo album isn’t what you’d expect from a former member of Pantera, but it is exactly what you’d expect from a 50-something good ole boy from Texas. Belying his fourth-banana-in-a-90s-metalband status, Smoke On This is shit-kicking stoner rock with one eye on the glorious past.

The Zep III-ish Buried Alive and Floydian ambience of The Best Of Me suggest a man who first picked up a bong sometime around 1974 and hasn’t put it down since, while epic closer One Of These Days is worth its weight in vintage denim.

Fans of his old band looking for spark-fingered histrionics or chest-thumping machismo will be disappointed – Brown was always the lukewarm water between the fire and ice of Phil Anselmo and Dimebag Darrell. But like a packhorse in an old western movie, Smoke On This does just what it needs to with the minimum of flash.