SPACE COKE — Lunacy (review)

Album · 2022 · Stoner Metal

3.5/5 · 2022-04-02
siLLy puPPy

Emerging from Columbia, South Carolina as far back as 2008, the bong worshipping band SPACE COKE is one of those modern musical entities that isn’t impressed by the overt complexities of many contemporary music forms and has instead looked to the past from some many decades ago to find its musical comfort zone, in this case the wild drug fueled 1960s. Finding its niche in the modern world of stoner metal, SPACE COKE takes the typical genre approach by adopting the guitar majesty of classic Black Sabbath, the extra touches of guitar oomf via the channeling of Jimi Hendrix and the typical heavy psych fuzz and buzz of an entire generation of freaky people who just wanted to party with Cheech and Chong.

So far this band that consists of Reno 'El Cheapo' Gooch (guitar, vocals), Jay Matheson (bass), Moses Andrews III (organ and keys) and Brandon Johnson (drums) has cranked out an EP and three bonafide albums with this latest LUNACY gracing the modern world in 2022 only like its 1969 with better recording equipment. While much of modern metal wants to craft scary and alienating soundscapes designed to freak yer shit out, SPACE COKE just wants to party and nobody understood the whole peace and love party ethos better than those who lived through the peace and love 60s. Flower power forever!!! LUNACY features five tracks with an unsurprising classic LP playing time of nearly 40 minutes.

When it comes to stoner metal, one cannot even think about entering the ring without the proper reverence to Black Sabbath and in that regard SPACE COKE has constructed an alter the size of its home state with all those oozing doomy guitar riffs that fly right off the pages of the Tony Iommi playbook but SPACE COKE isn’t a one-trick pony like many similarly styled bands in the midst. Oh no way. This band also pays particular reverence to a Mr Jimi Hendrix with more sophisticated guitar moments that erupt when the monotonous repetition of the doom riffing becomes a bit ho hum. Perhaps not as obvious is the fact that singer Reno Gooch mines his love of Indian Classic music which provides the proper overall structure for this transcendental journey into the bong-o-sphere.

What makes LUNACY really stand out from the competition though is the extensive use of organ and keyboard sounds which really activates the heavy psych 60s sound and if that wasn’t enough, space jazz tripper Sun Ra has been cited as a major influence which takes things even further into space cadet central. Also in the mix are various sound samples of miscellaneous films and sources from the past and to cement the stoner metal deal comes in the form of processed vocals and psychedelic production wizardry. While many a stoner album can assume the listener will be so blitzed out of his/her mind that no attention needs to be paid to the subtleties of crafting an interesting album, LUNACY on the other hand assumes no such nonsense and creates the perfect bifurcation meaning that this is an album that can be enjoyed passively while tripping one’s brains out or for someone like me who doesn’t have time for such things can appreciate exclusively as an artistic statement.

As with many stoner metal albums, the guitars aren’t really the genre’s strong suit. Like most albums in this exclusive club, guitar riffs are fairly standard and rarely inventive. The artistic expressions lie elsewhere if at all and in the case of LUNACY they lie in the exquisite retro organ sounds and the myriad sound effects that flicker in and out of the musical procession. Luckily the guitar riffing does change things up periodically too however the classic cyclical loops of repetitive guitar riffs do keep this album from fulling breaking from its Earthly orbit and thus lingers in monotonous drudgery at times. Overall this is a fun and entertaining album that will be appreciated by those who can appreciate the more modern stoner bands like Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Ufomammut or Dark Buddha Rising. While not my top pick of the stoner metal world, SPACE COKE delivered a lot more than i was expecting.