The more things change in music, the more they stay the same. The 1990s were the decade in which alternative rock became rock's dominant direction, Post-Baby Boomers became the target demographic for many rock stations, and a lot of Baby Boomer acts were relegated to Where Are They Now? segments on VH1. But the 1990s were also a decade of 1970s nostalgia -- a time when bellbottoms made a comeback (unfortunately!) and it was hip for alternative rockers to like the disco artists whose records were once burned in Chicago's Comiskey Park. The 1990s found post-Boomers calling their parents unhip for not liking hip-hop and grunge, but they also found a lot of post-Boomers being influenced by the bands their parents had listened to 20 or 30 years earlier. One of the interesting trends that developed in the 1990s was the stoner rock movement, which found a lot of young bands being heavily influenced by
Black Sabbath and learning some tricks from
Jimi Hendrix and
Blue Cheer as well. Sabbath's influence is impossible to miss on this self-titled debut album by
Sally, a stoner band that takes its name from the Sally Hardesty character in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Comparable to such bands as
Acid King,
Goatsnake and
Sons of Otis,
Sally brings a strong appreciation of
Tony Iommi's slow, plodding, brutal riffs to this often appealing, if uneven and derivative, debut. But there are times when
Sally isn't all that Sabbath-minded -- the spaced-out sonics that come toward the end of the CD (which was recorded in 1999 and released in 2000) recall psychedelia at its most bizarre. This album falls short of being a gem, but it's generally enjoyable and let us know that
Sally was worth keeping an eye on.