Everyone's hair is out to there
What a manly lookin' crew
I don't think I'll tease my hair
I'd rather sit here teasing you
It begins with an electrical hum, then Josh Homme picks out a simple figure on his guitar way down in the mix, repeat, repeat and then Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri slam in, John Garcia starts getting hysterical and we’re home.
After the opener ‘Thumb’ it just gets better track-on-track. How could I ever have not rated Kyuss Blues For The Red Sun?
”It’s okay, I suppose. Bit too much sodding around between songs for my tastes”. 1537, boring his friends with his opinion circa ’96.
You don't seem to understand the deal
I don't give two shits on how you feel (Thumb)
That was my impression of the CD I bought way back in medieval times, odd because there are far fewer interlude-y bits than I remembered*. So maybe it was that and the fact I’m instinctively not very keen on Josh Homme that coloured my views. Idiot me.
Blues For The Red Sun is a work of sand-hugging genius, a real cornerstone of everything desert/stoner rock that I love dearly. It’s very much the jumping off point for a lot of great stuff, including my truly beloved Fu Manchu via one of my I-genuinely-wish-I-was-him musical heroes Brant Bjork.
The legend has it that Kyuss, named after an AD&D monster for extra virgin cool points, got good playing countless generator parties out in the desert around So-Cal; certainly sounds better than a soggy adolescence in West Wales. Their first LP, Wretch, is okay as a learning but they landed massively with this, their second LP.
Blue For The Red Sun is a really great, varied LP. Let’s face it, if you DNA test any decent rock you’re going to find Sabbath in the mix, some descendants wear it more lightly than others and Kyuss are very much in that camp. What they take from them are the importance of a light-footed rhythm section, varied song writing and certain sun-kissed Iomni flourishes.
Josh Homme’s playing throughout is really deft and changeable. I hear a Dave Navarro lift and lilt at the beginning of ‘Apothecaries Weight’ and the playing in the immense ’50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)’ is positively 4AD style in the middle, really interesting non-rock sounds in there. He looks like a clean-cut 13 year-old in all the vids from back then too, which is cool compared to the other sleazebags in the band. Maybe I like him more than I thought.
Nick Oliveri, for all his later antics, plays it fuzzy and murky here, giving the band’s sound a truly deep bottom end. As one of the very great rock writers of our generation^ once noted John Garcia sings with the focus and just-this-side-of hysterical force of a man who has just caught his todger in his zip. It works, I love his voice.
I've got a war inside my head
It's got to set your soul free
I've got a wheel inside my head
A wheel of understanding
Stoner rock this may be, but like all the very best exemplars of the genre this is way more of an over-caffeinated group of tracks than a bong-hazed what-were-we-in-the-middle-of-doing-again? jam out. The desert racing ‘Green Machine’ being a primo example of this, as is ‘Allen’s Wrench’ and the anthemic ‘Freedom Run’. I am particularly fond of the belligerent ‘Thong Song’, which gets right up in your grid to comic affect.
Bjork and Homme are the main songwriters here on a pretty even basis, Garcia contributing some lyrics and Nick Oliveri penning the seriously-glazed ‘Mondo Generator’**. It works, Blues For The Red Sun manages a unity of sound and intent stretched across a variety of very different sounding cuts, the likes of ‘Writhe’ doing the whole heavy-HEAVY-light thing deftly.
There really aren’t any downsides to Blues For The Red Sun, even if you factor in a couple bits of sodding about between tracks later on; I like ’em all now. I owe my conversion to buying my vinyl copy, I think it is an exceptionally well-cut record, it just exploded right out of the traps, wrung my bell (!) and forcibly reminded me of the treats I had denied myself for years in these grooves. Idiot.
Blues For The Red Sun was so good and far ahead of the curve that of course nobody bought it in 1992. Obviously Kyuss carried on, releasing a pair of LPs that I haven’t treated myself to yet and then a couple of years later broke up splintering off into every other band I like from the area^*.
Come back to Blues For The Red Sun, as I did, it’s just so damned good.
My copy of Blues For The Red Sun is a 2023 ‘Rocktober’ (yuk!) reissue on gold vinyl. It sounds brilliant, if a touch quiet maybe – but that’s why Jesus created the volume knob. Thoroughly recommended.
1315 Down.
PS: Because Kyuss/2001/Dark Star:
*as a point of information 4, all on the second side.
**good luck on getting any words without cheating.
^that would be me.
^*and QOTSA.
This is the only Kyuss disc I’ve acquired so far, agree it’s a cracker. ‘Green Machine’ is awesome! This and the first few QOTSA albums are musically the best of Homme IMHO but yeah, ewwww.
I struggle with QOTSA as they once played an enormously disappointing gig (Manc on the ‘Songs For The deaf’ tour). We’d have walked out if it wasn’t for Lanegan. It coloured my views.
But this is the sweet spot for me, one day I’ll hear more.
Two responses.
It occurs to me that basing my visual images of a band on your Lego figs might not help me recognise them in the street.
Interesting to note that the clip you posted came from ‘rage’, the legendary (and very long-running) rock show on ABC-TV (our Beeb).
Be well. Rock on.
Agreed Bruce, many bands are less bright yellow than depicted here. True story.
I am and I will. Off topic: am really enjoying the Atomic Rooster.
That last makes me very happy. 🙂
I am not a Homme fan, but you make this sound very interesting that I’m going to have to check it out. Great review fine sir!
Thanks John, I’m not either but this is a cracker!