If you weld the fuzziness of Desert Rock with the heaviness of Stoner you get “Tundra Rock” as this vibrant sophomore album from Slomosa wants to show.
Through the years since its inception in Bergen, Norway back in 2016, this band has grown to be a force on the Hard Rock and Metal scene with impressive gigs and releases. Inspired by the Palm Desert scene they released their first single “Horses” in 2019 which was named one of the best songs of the year by Norway´s National Broadcasting company. Their playful and energetic take on the genre lifted many eyelids. When they released their first self-titled album they were embraced by the underground world and began touring. The scene was set and hard work was to come.
Entering 2020, the band had reformed with the only founding member and driving force left being Benjamin Berdous on guitar and laid-back vocals, his heavy fuzzy riffage was joined by another fuzz-fan on guitar, Tor Erik Bye. The new line-up was completed in 2020 when the vocals and the tight guitars were underpinned by the relentless drumming from Jard Hole and the throbbing and rumbling five-string bass from Marie Moe. The band´s sound became even more mature, engaging, melodic, and a force to reckon with.
On their sophomore album aptly named Tundra Rock, they manage to transform the fervor of energy they discharge at every gig they play. The music is induced with anarchistic fuzzy guitars that sweep you away with their powerful drive pushed by the rhythm section. Their presence on stage is hefty, also because of the bassist’s movements as she lays down the licks on her five-string. They are touring the world these days. If the band brings the fuzz of Tundra Rock to your neighborhood, get a ticket - you will never regret it, nor will you forget it as you will be tripping the light fantastic together with the band.
I might have swayed a bit from what I am here to do, review the album. But live gigs and albums are welded together because when you have seen them live and listen to the album, the two things melt in my feeble brain. After all, they manage so well to induce the live vigor into a tour-de-force of an album.
”Afghansk Rev” opens the album. For Norwegians a very funny title alluding to more than just an Afghan fox (rev=fox), because in slang “rev” is also something one puffs on. Say no more and let the music begin with sound effects, clear guitars, and bass as if searching for a chord to start the album. When they find the chord the heavy fuzz motions in a slow tempo with the drums thumping, hitting the cymbals and the bass for the extra heaviness. This is mostly a powerful fuzzy instrumental dragging slowly forward immersing howls from the vocalist.
The first song is like a prelude to what is to come across the next eight songs. It lays the basis for what the band has come to call “Tundra Rock”. A twinkle in the eye hints at Desert Rock. Being Norwegians, they are far away from any desert, but closer to the Antarctic tundra which is as deserted as the desert, but frozen with never-ending chilly winds roaring in your face. If I should go out on a limb and look fifty-sixty years back I could say that Slomosa on this album fuses the fuzzy anarchistic sounds of Blue Cheer with the heaviest sides of doomy Black Sabbath. And by this become the instigators of the Tundra Rock genre. I might not be able to defend this in a doctoral thesis, but probably could at the bar after a gig.
The guitars throughout the album eject unruly riffs. Building towers of sound, but also constantly shifting directions as they do on for example ”Cabin Fever” where there is a bluesy whiff in the fuzz before it goes a lot heavier and slows down to doom pace when the bass emerges to provide depth as the music tightens to follow the cool melodic vocals. The relentless drumming ties the whole music together. As with every song, you get a sense of a band having uncontrolled fun, but you know they are in full control playing with the hearts on their sleeve.
On ”Red Tundra” there is a sublime glissading fuzziness as the music drifts forward with the bass handing in much of the heaviness and the drums pushing for a higher tempo. This song opens with bass and the clear vocals from the bassist. On the hefty rhythmic part of the song ”MJ” there is a part where a guitar glides out of the music spurting a solo with the other guitar answering with a higher pitch forming a melody. The sonic stretch as wide as it can be, filling every corner. They are no strangers to some heavy tremolos as they show on ”Rolling Guns” which opens with fuzzy tremolo laid upon heavy drumming before the bass begins to throb and push with subtle shifts ebbing and flowing thus constructing a melodic theme as the guitars mix fuzzy riffing with the tremolo sounds.
”Dune” closes the album with a twist as an opening acoustic guitar and bongo drums give a Caribbean rhythm and sense to the music. After some distant riffing and a single strumming acoustic guitar, the track eventually swells into fuzzy Slomosa sonics driven forward by the pulsating rhythm section. The song changes direction with the guitars supporting chanting and harmonic vocals from both male and female vocals. Then it turns back to the steady heaviness and the bass licks rise in the fuzzy heaviness. The music flows forward with the repeated vocal harmonies immersed in the wide sonics. The album ends with chanting and the return of the acoustic guitar.
I am the lucky holder of tickets to two of their gigs in Norway this autumn. You should get one to wherever you are if they swing by. Then you will witness a band on the rise break the glass ceiling of the underground, setting out to conquer the world.
