Released in January of 2019 Kyuss vocalist and founder of desert rock bands such as Unida, Slo-Burn, Hermano and Vista Chino returned with his next project: John Garcia & The Band Of Gold. Coming in at just under 41 minutes with 11 tracks you’ll get a tighter affair than extended jams. Songs with groove take center stage over extended jams and those who are familiar with the stoner, desert rock vibes will know what to expect
Track 1, the instrumental “Space Vato” gets things cooking with a slow distorted guitar line with another guitar layering a clean delay line over the top. A few bars in this leads to the up-tempo rock out section of the song.
Track 2,”Jim’s Whiskers” has a desert blues vibe leading into Garcia’s familiar vocals stylings. This track demonstrates Garcia has not lost a thing vocally, if anything after years of making records he knows when to let it rip and if needed dial things back to accommodate the song.
Track 9, “Don’t Even Think About It” starts off with an almost Kim Thayil “Badmotorfinger” style riff before dropping off into heavy driving groove. At three minutes in the band breaks out into a double time section rolling into a wah driven guitar solo before closing out.
Track 10, Cheyletiella has a really great driving groove and is one of the more hook laden choruses on this release. Album closer, “Softer Side” is a great way to slow things down and chill with delay heavy guitar lines and pulled back vocals for the majority of the track with a shout of, “I can’t do anything right!”, before going back to the mellowness at the start of the track and fading out.
Chris Goss (Masters of Reality) who also produced Kyuss and the Queens of the Stone Age is the producer here. Overall this is a good release with a locked in rhythm section, passionate, expressive vocals and heavy guitar riffs and solos to fill out the sound.
Track List
1. Space Vato
2. Jim’s Whiskers
3. Chicken Delight
4. Kentucky II
5. My Everything
6. Lillianna
7. Popcorn (Hit Me When You Can)
8. Apache Junction
9. Don’t Even Think About It
10. Cheyletiella
11. Softer Side
Line Up
John Garcia – Vocals
Ehren Groban – Gutar
Mike Pygmie – Bass
Greg Saenz – Percussion