Cuarzo - "Vol 2" 2020
A young power trio from Lima, Peru delivers a pretty astounding hour-long album of thick instrumental doom / stoner metal jams overflowing with psychedelic guitar leads and heavy grooves. I started this blog to keep track of instrumental doom metal, a favorite genre to zone out to at work, and I stumbled on to this band from far off South America and they might just be the pinnacle of what I'm looking for in an instrumental doom metal band. When it comes to doom, it has to begin and end with Sabbath. There's no escaping that. And these guys bring the Sabbath goods- bass, drums and that crunchy guitar are straight out of the Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Tony Iommi prototype. But tempered- they are definitely not all-out metal. They are as much classic 70s rock as metal and that to me is even more attractive. To bring it into a more contemporary focus- I have to mention Kyuss. I don't know how much Kyuss should be credited with influencing Cuarzo (great band name btw) but the grooves and some of the structures owe quite a bit to the last 2 Kyuss albums- the head-nodding groove and shifting stop-start tempos on "Titanomaquia" for example. And I'll throw in Sleep as another possible pre-cursor, with the head-crushing riffs. When they get heavy they approach the level of first album Sleep in single-minded head-banging. And you can't help but be impressed by the length of this album- 62 minutes. Of course doom is not known for brevity but this has to be one of the more concise hour-long albums I've ever heard. If anything I wish it was longer. Anything to hear that white-hot burning guitar sound drifting endlessly over those steady grooves. I look forward to whatever these gentlemen come up with next- I hope they keep it quality, heavy and all-instrumental.
Key track: Stonia
Key track: Stonia
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