Kyuss – Welcome to Sky Valley (1994)

It would be a fair comment to say that music lovers are lovers of music because the bands that they love, no one else really understands. A feeling the fans of bands such as Kyuss must love getting. Yes, to those uneducated in this field, Kyuss may well sound like another rock ‘n’ roll band. What Kyuss actually represent are one of the last ever rock ‘n’ roll bands to sound like they do, and turn it into a whole new genre.

In their ten or so year lifespan, from 16 to 18 year olds to 26 to 28 year olds, they accomplished a lot more than many. They had every rock ‘n’ roll ethic going, music loving kids having a good time, tantrums, drugs, sex, and alcohol. But all to a fun extent, they were a bullshitting hypocritical rock band causing controversy; after all, it was the music they were interested in, but, with everything else on top, the formula equated to possibly the last perfect rock band.

Taking drug addled, bass grooves as their primary guitar sound, all your favourite Black Sabbath riffs, adding an amazingly talented vocalist (John Garcia), singing about getting stoned and having a good time, Kyuss combined all of these elements and more to create a potent brew of rawk at its finest. A band that dominated underground metal during the late 80’s and early to mid 90’s for their music stance, which sat somewhere between rock ‘n’ roll, heavy metal and death metal. Oh yeah, and they were appreciated by all genres as being apart from the general flow, and thus they created a whole new genre – stoner metal.

And you only need to pop this, one of the most influential metal albums of all time, into your loudest sound system, and you’re pretty much stoned without the weed. Welcome to Sky Valley was released in 1994, a time when grunge and at the other end industrial metal was at an all time high. Co-founding member Nick Oliveri had just left the band (remind you of anything from 10 years later?), and there were severe doubts about the future of Kyuss. So, in return, Kyuss shut everyone up by releasing an absolutely flawless record.

Split up into three sections; I, II and III, this was ten tracks of every single sound that made them great in the first place. Kicking off with the quite amazingly sluggish riff of “Gardenia“, providing an amazing stoner experience, a song sounding like a seven minute improvisation, onto “Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop”, a guitar riffage dream, Part I is basically the band saying they can still write amazing weed based heavy metal songs.

It’s not until Part II that you are absolutely blown away. Kicking off with the punk rock behemoth “100 Degrees” you get a fast paced love song. But then, right after the climax, you suddenly get dragged into the fantastic country and western based “Space Cadet“, seven minutes of phenomenal chill out, acoustic riffs that is just stunning to sit down and listen to. Finishing off this part of the album is “Demon Cleaner”, the heavy anthem of the album, which sounds like something that came straight out of a dream

In Part III, we get back to the extremely heavy, yet chilled out and simultaneously groovy beats of the Kyuss sound and are loving every moment of it. As amazing as their previous effort, Blues for the Red Sun (1992), there was no beating this, and perhaps although And the Circus Leaves Town (1995) was a very good album, with some brilliant tracks, it was as an album too far when you hear Sky Valley. The main aspect to appreciate when you listen to Kyuss is that, although they spent their time smoking and then singing about weed and its quite hilarious effects, stoner metal probably isn’t the right term here. When you listen to the record, even without looking at the bands cover art or videos, you can imagine yourself at what the more appropriate term for Kyuss’ music is: desert rock. Because what this music really incorporates is the feeling of just driving in an open top car, stereo system blasting, sun setting, in the middle of no man’s land America, the deserts. And the fact that a piece of music that is this album can create its own personal feeling of setting is what really separates it from all competition.

by A. Turner-Heffer