Ponamero Sundown - Stonerized

Ponamero Sundown, would you believe another awesome band from Sweden ! This bands debut album plays almost like a tribute to everything Stoner Rock has gave us over the last 15 years. Within the album's grooves you can hear traces of Kyuss, Spiritual Beggars, Dozer, Truckfighters, Fu Manchu, Color Haze, The Awesome Machine and early Nebula. So as you can worked out by now, there is not much in the way of originality here but they still dish up some major fuzz rock music and are really pretty diverse within the Stoner Rock genre considering the amount of ground they cover on this disc. The band has a obvious mid 90's sound while the production is beefed up into modern day standards. The tracks on all reek of different influence's , "Live The Lie" sounds a little like mid era "Kyuss", "Doctor Of Evil" sounds like classic "Dozer" and you can pick out influences on every other track on here. This would be unfair for me to do though because this band do what they do so well that if i make comparisons to other bands with every track if would sound like they are just pure copy cats and that they are not ! “Alcoholic Deathride” is one track that they seem to have their own thing going, this is the opening track on the CD and it kicks some serious butt. Even more so is the aggressive “Double You” which has so much angry Stoner groove, you just want to crank this mutha up to 11. "Hell Bent" and ''Curtain Call" are great tracks full of some powerful Stoner riffs but the later sounds has a section that sounds like a clear rip off of something. Maybe someone out there can tell me what it is, it has been driving me nuts thinking about it. Instrumentally the band know their stuff, great guitar work played with real passion and energy. The vocals are just right for the tunes, well balanced in the mix but nothing to get too excited about. They do the job well however and the the overall mood of the CD is one of driving in your hotted up car, even hotter chick beside you with beer and weed to share. The instrumental title track is a surprise here, it finishes the album in a softer fashion. Weird way to finish the album, i think it would have been more effective in the middle just to serve as some sort of interlude. If you fell in love with Stoner Rock in the early to mid 90's like i did, you will eat this up. However if you are looking for something unique or original within the context of a Stoner/Fuzz/Desert Rock band you might this a little too much on the familiar side of things. What they do have going for them is some killer catchy riffs and just enough diversity to make you want to listen right to the end. A couple of interesting points, this album got to number 2 on the Swedish hard rock chart and cracked the top 30 on the mainstream chart. I guess that shows you much more the Swedes love their hard rock compared to the USA. This is only their debut album so maybe they are just testing out their Stoner craft, the next album could be truly amazing. 8/10


www.myspace.com/ponamerosundown
http://www.ponamerosundown.com