Hazy Daze
The drugged-out haze rock of Strange Faces debuts in the smoky miasma of Stonerism. The Chi-town foursome’s first LP is messy at best with nebulous vocals, loose guitar, imperfect rhythms, and a noise overload within a mellow tempo. The name of the collection was rightfully chosen, fulfilling its purpose as a stoner album. In other words, you’ll need to be high for this one.
Though incessant, the textured reverb creates a frazzling yet surprisingly cohesive sonic overlay to what else would be a chaotic muddle of chords and discords. The psychedelic mist swirls around mumbled vocals that drift just out of range as you’re coming to the revelation. It’s confusing, stimulating, sad, and monotonous all in one jumbled collection—holding true to the album title.
The guitar is the most disappointing instrument of the mix, like in “Don’t Feel Bad,” which begins subparly with a basic chord progression that doesn’t inspire or captivate. Lyrics drone, “I did the worst damn thing, and I don’t feel sad.” The daze has encroached, and the guilt floats away.
“I Saw Your Face” kicks things off with an upbeat tempo that fades into an intoxicated state of mind before picking up momentum again at the very end; the bowl is being passed around. “Serenade” has the promising quality of a surf rock tune with vocals rising to a scream in one point and adding some dynamics to the drone. When “Still Lit” hits, you have already sunk into this one-pitch, fuzzy land of Stonerism like an uncomfortable mattress, and you can’t get up. So you smoke some more weed and start to actually like it. The stoner anthem of the disc fusses, “It’s late, I’m starting to lose my head. I feel like going to bed. Don’t know what to do…I’m still lit, don’t wanna quit. I’m still lit, just one more hit.”
“Such a Drag” is kind of a drag, so just take another drag before you melt into this blur that is marked with melodic guitar and drum moments between the only three words in the song, which are repeated as the chorus. Garage rock “Skippin’ Town” tries out some speedy guitar moves, but it’s a little too sloppy. There are some psychedelic segments toward the end that make you wonder if your getaway car is actually a cloud or a spaceship or maybe a unicorn sliding down a rainbow.
“Nothin’ to Prove” embodies the mantra of the album, which includes escaping via substances, being yourself, and not giving a fuck what anyone (like me) thinks about it. Which is pretty cool, honestly. “Brand New Way” does nothing brand new, but “Long Time” serves as the sober love song that comes at the end of the night when everything eventually wears off and you start to get sad and way too real. It has some melancholy guitar wails and drum hits that evoke that state of mind, while the vocals remain raw. You can dejectedly slow dance with the air to this one to end the evening.
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