Small Stone Records have a knack for finding the hidden treasures of desert rock. Hailing from Boston, Gozu are another fuzzy-toned fungus to add to their collection of tasty morsels.
Tracks entitled Salty Thumb and Irish Dart Fight whet the whistle for their stripped down, stoner aesthetic in all its garage floor-trembling glory, taking the likes of QOSTA and melding it with grunge melodies and beefy, palm-muted riffs. At times this album sounds derivative, but the subtle switches in tempo keep it fresh. When those melodies kick in, like Traci Lords in the minor key, or the undulating Bald Bull, they reveal the vital moments that make this album so ear-catching.
Disco Related Injury is pure Californian motorcycle club fodder that encourages stoner’s synaesthesia – you hear desert rock, you see an expanse of dusty highway. But the icing on their cake is the 23-minute sludgehammer of The Ceaseless Thunder Of Surf – a sluggish, psychedelic soundscape imbibing the soul of Neurosis and ending with a hearty WTF?