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Review & Full Album Premiere: Spacetrucker, Smooth Orbit

spacetrucker smooth orbit

[Click play above to stream Spacetrucker’s Smooth Orbit in its entirety. Album is out Aug. 17.]

There’s a lot about St. Louis trio Spacetrucker that points to their being a classic stoner rock band. For one, their name. Also, their sound. But it goes further than that as well and into their presentation. Looking at the cover of their self-released debut full-length, Smooth Orbit, it’s in their use of the Star Wars logo font, as well as the literal depiction of “space truckin’ round the stars,” as Deep Purple once put it, with a tricked out van riding around the rings of Saturn. Charm is a factor, certainly, but it was as well when this style of heavy, fuzz-drenched rock took hold in the late ’90s informed by grunge, punk and its own disaffection. The difference between that moment and this one, of course, is 20 years, and accordingly, guitarist/vocalist Mike Owen, bassist/vocalist Rob Wagoner and drummer Del Toro have an entire generation — two, really — to learn from when it comes to their style.

One thinks of Man’s Ruin Records acts like Tummler or Suplecs as stylistic touchstones. Bands who were obviously aware of the likes of Fu ManchuKyuss, etc., but ready to bring something of their own to what had come before. Spacetrucker, who further echo this era by making their first record the CD-style length of 10 songs and 52 minutes, are likewise looking to bring a nuance to the genre, and one can hear it surfacing in songs like “Meat Wagon,” the raw-hitting “Hotbox Airlock,” and shorter instrumental passages like the raging “Breach,” the jammed-out “Fuck Up” and “Cat March,” which has sampled marching that may or may not actually be recorded cats in a litter box. They succeed in hitting that mark, ultimately, and their debut explores a range of crunch and groove from the nodding push in the first half of “Vanishing Point/Science of Us” with its over-the-top guitar solo to the sudden turn at 5:27 into the total 7:33 to acoustic strum and percussion. On first listen, one might just think it’s a different song entirely. Nope, it’s just Spacetrucker going where they want to go.

Balancing that impulse with more familiar aesthetic elements — the fuzz, the roll, the sheer dayjob-respite vibe that pervades the chugging “Pulling Teeth” or second cut “Not as Hung” — is one of Smooth Orbit‘s greater strengths, and it is found right down to the tones of Owen and Wagoner and the grit that coincides with their engaging riffage. I think we’re early yet to call it retro and the production is modern anyway, but Spacetrucker clearly know the style they want to play — that is, they sound like fans — and are able to translate that into their own work. The bass after the siren in “Breach,” the subtle sprawl that contradicts the start-stop riff as opener “Sample of a Sample” makes it way toward its apex, or the way the bookend closer “Lost in the Sauce” eases into its slower progression, a final nod-out as the band builds to a suitably raucous finish, ending — how could they not — with an explosion that signals more than just the end of the record.

spacetrucker

By then, Spacetrucker have made their intentions plain — the sampled bonghit in “Hotbox Airlock” tells its fair share of the story — and their intentions are, in fact, pretty plain. They’re not looking to reinvent rock and roll. It isn’t about getting that gig at the art gallery. It’s straight-ahead heavy rock and roll. There are flashes of psychedelic rock and grunge is always there and the pot they’re stirring wants nothing for ingredients in general, but at their core, Owen, Wagoner and Del Toro are a heavy rock band, and they present themselves as such with zero pretense otherwise. They know you know, and you know they know you know. That does nothing to stop them from delivering a quality batch of tunes that seems to nod at The Pixies early in “Meat Wagon” as comfortable as the gravely vocals recall Nirvana in the verses that soon follow. Likewise, as they make their way through the instrumental “Fuck Up,” their ability to vary the structures in their material goes even further toward offering diversity of sound.

At the same time, that manner of breaking up one means of craft with another — this applies to the overarching impact made by “Breach” and “Cat March” as well — enhances the flow between the tracks where otherwise it might interrupt them more than anything. Spacetrucker gave an encouraging first showing on 2016’s Launch Sequence (review here), and they build on that effectively with this initial full-length. What seems to be most important in their work is the element of personality they bring to it. I don’t think “Hotbox Airlock” makes it out of ‘working title’ status if a band doesn’t have a sense of humor, and that’s important, but I’m talking even more about the stylistic blend that Spacetrucker bring to bear throughout the songs themselves. It’s not just about goofing off with riffs, but there’s still the definite impression that they’re having and good time, and well they should.

This kind of hyper-down-to-earth heavy rock and roll is the stuff on which the genre was made, and long before that hypothetical art gallery was even booking loud bands, three-pieces of this ilk were blowing out eardrums with the kind of abandon that Spacetrucker embody so fluidly today. It would be fair to call them traditional in that sense, but if I hope to have gotten any single point across here, it’s that there’s more going on than performance of genre. In their sonic persona and their presentation overall, Spacetrucker not only hearken to a bygone era of heavy rock, but they thereby find a niche for themselves not only within that, but in the modern sphere of aesthetic heft. That speaks to a drive toward individualism in terms of sound, which only bodes well for them going forward, and is another among the many encouraging aspects of this debut. It seems fair to expect some level of progression next time around as their influences get melded further together and so on, but these guys already know where they want to be on the heavy spectrum, and they’ve got their boogie van headed right for it.

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Spacetrucker on Bandcamp

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One Response to “Review & Full Album Premiere: Spacetrucker, Smooth Orbit

  1. Richard Weitekemper says:

    Great review love the music this band needs to be signed on a label I hear so many great things in there music
    I’m Dels dad and yes I’m partial but I’ve been in music all my life in one form or another but they have a lot going for them thanks for the great article

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