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Rex Brown’s debut solo album isn’t what you’d expect from a former member of Pantera, but it is exactly what you’d expect from a 50-something good ole boy from Texas. Belying his fourth-banana-in-a-90s-metal band status, Smoke On This is shit-kicking stoner rock with one eye on the glorious past.

The Zep III-SOFTWAREmark” gingersoftwareuiphraseguid=“0a6a32fd-a112-4a4c-ac07-f7349d8be43b” id=“9fa8458e-956b-4534-9a88-c61fae8c12a8”>SOFTWAREmark” gingersoftwareuiphraseguid=“d4439a04-4452-452f-af2d-d3f32f5b5915” id=“a2a7e9e4-1979-4c46-a11f-379f633d35a7”>ish Buried Alive and Floydian ambience of The Best Of Me suggest a man who first picked up a bong sometime around 1974 and hasn’t put it down since, while epic closer One Of These Days is worth its weight in vintage denim.

Fans of his old band looking for spark-fingered histrionics or chest-thumping machismo will be disappointed – Brown was always the lukewarm water between the fire and ice of Phil Anselmo and Dimebag Darrell. But like a packhorse in an old western movie, Smoke On This does just what it needs to with the minimum of flash.

Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago.