There are several disparate elements working together in surprising unison for Long Island outfit, Dogs of Karma. The Patchogue four-piece fuse punk, hardcore, metal and stoner/Southern influences on their All Grassed Over (Last Resort Entertainment) debut full-length, and though it works as an overall aesthetic – that is, nothing clashes so much as to sound outlandish or ridiculous in a way unintended by the band – there are moments of incongruity brought out by All Grassed Over’s production that are inevitably going to hold some listeners back from being able to fully appreciate it.

Chief among the issues with All Grassed Over is that it is a staggering 77 minutes long. In listening, I basically approached the single-CD release as two albums on one disc, with tracks one through eight comprising one 32-minute record and nine through 16 (!) a second, 44-minute full-length. The split there seems natural owing to the placement of the “Doobinterlude”-esque “Johnny Mushroom,” which provides an instrumental break from the stoner punk-metal before. That’s not the only aspect of All Grassed Over that Dogs of Karma harness from a Down influence. Some of guitarist Chris Norris’ riffs bounce like a sped-up Pepper Keenan’s, and vocalist Dave Bonessi’s yowl isn’t as blatantly derivative, but his scream on a track like “Choke the Truth” or the more purely metallic “The Phantom Being” comes from a similar place in the stomach as Phil Anselmo’s did in his Pantera days. That Dogs of Karma couple this aggressive side of their sound with some blues and (again) punk influence – I’ll be damned if drummer John Papayani doesn’t sound like he was in a Long Island hardcore band at some point in his life – offsets the Down-er aspects, but it’s there for anyone with an ear to hear it nonetheless.

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