ALBUMS
COME & CHUTNEY RIFF ROCK LONDON STONER/PSYCH LUNATICS BEAM DOWN FROM PLANET WRYD
Collaborations from Uniform and The Body, and Wovenhand’s David eugene edwards and einstürzende Neubauten’s Alexander Hacke, plus The lion’s Daughter, Fukpig, obscura, Axegrinder and more.
SOME BANDS WANT to watch the world burn, others rage against the machine, and then there are those who burrow underground and explore the confines of their own craniums with a little help from booze, drugs and uplifting, downtuned riffs in a bid to get some respite from the herd. Corpsepaint-loving, tie-dye enthusiasts Chubby Thunderous Bad Kush Masters fall very much into the latter category and their debut album sees them serve up a tasty slice of lunacy that will leave no speaker (or tooth) unrattled.
Featuring Owen Carty, former frontman for coulda-been-contenders Dopefight, in their ranks, the London trio enlist the talents of Ten Foot Wizard’s Gary Harkin, Riddles’ Thom Carter and Vôdun’s Chantal Brown to bolster proceedings, and their presence helps raise the bar as the band lower the tone. Opening strongly with the fuzzed-up Doggy Bag Of Slurry, the sevenminute-plus pummelling lumbers along like something from Jurassic World with their singer adding some awesome leatherlunged vocals to the mix that suggest he could be the bastard son of Lemmy and Kory Clarke. Cojones Feos picks up the pace and is a simple but effective, cowbellbothering blast of stoner and sludge goodness, while Gutlads is unfathomably heavy. Psychedelic Hallucinogenic Vagrancy ends the eight-track opus on a high with the band stretching their considerable musical muscles, dabbling in space rock, psych and prog over the course of eight minutes. Chantal’s expressive, soulful guest vocals are a thing of beauty, as is the Jon Lord-esque organ solo at the climax. If there’s any justice in the world, the Chubby ones’ debut full-length should see the bruisers shrug off their ‘plucky contenders’ tag and help them take their rightful place among the heavyweights.
FOR FANS OF: BONGZILLA, ATTALLA, TEN FOOT WIZARD