ALBUM REVIEW: Smolyk – Petyr
California is one of the Mecca’s of the stoner rock and metal scene; it’s produced great bands like SLEEP, ACID KING and a myriad of other amazing bands that have combined rock and metal with the dulcet tones and distortion that have marked the genre over the years. Oceanside’s PETYR are a band that are looking to put their mark on this scene and establish their own voice within it. With their debut, self-titled album they managed to lay down some solid foundations to build upon. The second album, Smolyk, is a massive step in the right direction for the band, and showcases a band that are at the top of their creative game, and could very well make them a household name within the genre.
The first four tracks are essentially one long track broken up into four separate sections, and kick the album off in style. Smolyk Part 1 bursts into life in a blaze of fuzzy guitar chords and crashing symbols, before descending into an incredibly dense piece of heavily distorted stoner rock. It’s a great instrumental piece that sets the listener up for the rest of the record, leading straight into the second of these four tracks. This second offering is a powerful, groove-laden affair that contains some excellent guitar leads, bubbling bass lines and fluid yet intense drumming.
The dense distortion makes it sound all the more monolithic, and pays homage to early 70s hard rock with its musical approach, creating an impenetrable wall of noise that is incredibly engrossing from start to finish. Part three, with its much cleaner tone, makes up for the lack of hazy tone by giving the listener some frenetic, heavy and disjointed musicianship that borders on prog rock, drenched in reverb and proving to be intensely hypnotic at points. It’s a shame that the track is so short, as it’s an idea that could have easily gone another three or four minutes without sliding into the realms of tedium. The fourth and final part of the Smolyk tracks is a short sharp shock of heavy, rhythm driven hard rock, liberally peppered with robust riffs and brilliant tones, which lasts just shy of two minutes before promptly coming to an end.
Sunrise Double, a colossal behemoth of a track, is characterised by tight, energetic guitar hooks, hazy and ethereal vocals and authoritative drumming, and it features plenty of musical variety to keep it interesting. It’s got powerful, quickly paced sections and other parts that are set to a slow, crawling pace by comparison. Naturally, this whole track is soaked in beautiful ambience that evokes thoughts of bands like KYUSS and THE HIDDEN HAND, without straying into the territory of copying or directly taking them as a blueprint to follow. It’s got it’s own sound and feel, and if you like powerful, anthemic stoner rock, this is something you’re bound to love.
Salt Lake proves to be one of the best tracks on the whole record; it’s got an insanely catchy main riff, and the song as a whole has an intensity to it that makes it seem all the more powerful. PETYR manage to cram a lot of great ideas into its three and a half minute span, and manages to blur the line between straight forward, ferocious hard rock and monolithic stoner metal. Grease ‘Em All follows in a similar vein, with some speed-driven, fierce sounding guitar hooks, precise and tight drumming and some truly haunting vocals. It’s got a great sound, with a plenty of well utilised distortion adding to the sound of the song. It does a great job of injecting solid metal flourishes into the mix, without shedding any of the stoner rock influences that have played such a big part in the album’s sound up until this point.
Zero Time (Dark), the album’s penultimate track, starts with a much more minimalist approach, with the song slowly building in its opening moments, with the sound steadily becoming denser and darker as it progresses. It’s an excellent slow burner, and proves to be the most experimental track on the record, at times adopting a far more progressive sound. It’s a hypnotising track, and it’s very easy to get sucked into it as it gradually heads towards its climactic motif. This is a great track from PETYR that does a great job of setting the listener up for the final, monstrous offering.
Distant Shores, by far the longest track on the record, clocking in at just shy of ten minutes, is a master class in how to do vast, atmospheric and memorable stoner rock. It’s got a lot of really impressive musicianship, with the vocals finally coming to the fore and providing some solid hooks of their own. The guitar work on this particular song is quite expansive, diverse and adventurous, and there is an abundance of individual riffs that flow seamlessly alongside each other. The song begins to wind down just after the half way mark, shifting from the riff saturated intensity of the track’s first half into a far more atmospheric and quintessentially stoner sound. Tinging their uplifting and anthemic sound with a hint of melancholy, it’s also a very emotive track, and it’s clear that this is the stand out performance of the album, bringing the album to an end in a suitably grandiose fashion.
Smolyk is, perhaps, a contender for album of the year, at least as far as hard rock and stoner music goes. The amount of excellent ideas on full display, the quality of the musicianship and even the way the album sounds is fantastic from start to finish. It would have been great to hear more vocals on here, because they do sound genuinely brilliant, but luckily the music on here is so mind-blowingly good to listen to that the lack of vocals at times allow the music to take centre stage and get your full appreciation. Their music is, at certain points, evocative of legendary bands like ACID KING, but it never strays into the realms of parody or carbon copy, and they have their own distinct sound and style when it comes to writing and recording music. It will be interesting to see, and indeed hear, how PETYR are going to follow this record up.
Rating: 9/10
Smolyk is out now via Outer Battery Records.
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