Once upon a time stoner rock was synonymous with the dusty environs of California. But Sweden, being quick on the uptake, started spitting out bands of their own which are quite annoyingly good: Asteroid, Truckfighters, Dozer, Lowrider... the list goes on.
Well-schooled in the fuzzy, beard-friendly odes to Kyuss, Deville take the blueprint for this genre, but much like their countrymen Grand Magus, they articulate an appetite for mainstream melodies that pushes their style beyond the territory of 70s rock worship, causing them to sound more like Foo Fighters than Fu Manchu.
In fact the comparisons to the former are steadfast, from the stomping 4⁄4 drums to Andreas Bengtsson’s Grohl-a-like vocal offerings. For all their straight talking on 21st-century stoner, Hydra expounds rhythmic features that keep them on the underside of hard rock.
