The fourth album by Philadelphia-based instrumental stoner-metal- jazz-core trio
Stinking Lizaveta bears an unfortunate resemblance to those records that SST starting putting out in the latter half of the '80s, when the quality control department was apparently too stoned out of its mind to notice that a whole lot of really boring albums of vaguely bluesy quasi-metal noodling were slipping into the stores unbidden, basically unwanted and for the most part, unloved. The songs are neither chops-intensive enough to impress the guys who subscribe to Guitar Player and still think
Stevie Vai is godhead, nor riff-swaggering enough to work as good old-fashioned stoner rock. While it's undeniably true that the album's lack of vocals is a godsend -- lord knows what kind of tripe some third-rate son-of-
Ozzy hack would be growling out over the
Black Sabbath-like stomp of "Out of Breath" -- it's hard to imagine anyone who is neither a friend of the band nor too baked to put down the bong and crawl out of the beanbag chair long enough to change CDs listening to this album more than once or twice. ~ Stewart Mason