Of the sundry stoner/riff-heavy bands that emerged from my beloved Garden State in the wake of Monster Magnet‘s run at major label success, one of the most often and most unfortunately overlooked is Solarized. They had two albums in 1999’s Neanderthal Speedway (Man’s Ruin) and 2001’s Driven (MeteorCity), a split with Solace, and they appeared on a couple compilations, but then they faded into the swamps. The scene links were there — guitarist/vocalist Jim Hogan and drummer Regina Santana were in Daisycutter with Tim Cronin (The Ribeye Bros.) and Ed Mundell (now ex-Monster Magnet), and in and out of the band at different points were Halfway to Gone‘s Lou Gorra and Lee Stuart, the latter who went on to form A Thousand Knives of Fire — but that wasn’t enough to get Solarized much past 2003. Their last reported lineup was Hogan, Santana, bassist George Pierro and second guitarist Dave Topolenski.

I was doing my usual bit of late night eBay dicking around last week when I spotted an original Man’s Ruin promo for Neanderthal Speedway (the kind with the bio attached that’s been posted about before, and before, and before) and decided to snap it up for the listed $7 and use posting the bio as an excuse to revisit the album, which I already owned. It’s a friendly listen, some psychedelia spread throughout, and Hogan‘s vocals are gruff but not forced, and buried under his ultra-fuzzed out guitar. The Atomic Bitchwax‘s first record, which also came out in 1999, but on Tee Pee, is a decent point of reference, but something about Solarized is more assured and confident in its sound. Both Tim Cronin and Ed Mundell turn in guest appearances throughout Neanderthal Speedway, and listening to it now that the stoner scene has grown internationally and splintered so much, it’s kind of a return to simpler times, which, as someone who wishes people didn’t get offended at the term “stoner rock,” I can appreciate every now and then.

The bio may not be as thrilling as Brant Bjork‘s or Goatsnake‘s, but here it is anyway. Click the image to make it bigger in a new window/tab:

For what it’s worth, I was happy to get the chance to listen to Neanderthal Speedway again. Granted, I could have done so without spending any money by taking the disc off my shelf at any given point, but screw it, it was $7 and “February Sixth (Anti-Life Equation)” rules and the riff of “Solar Fang” is close enough to “Zodiac Lung” to give me a fix, so I don’t feel like I lost out on anything. I was still in high school at the time and knew squat about stoner rock, but it would have been something to run into Solarized at a show. I suppose I still feel that way now.

Tags: Man's Ruin, New Jersey, Solarized

This entry was posted on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Buried Treasure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.