Album Review: Stöner, Totally…
At some point between then and now, Stöner decided they were a real band. The Cali desert-dwelling three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Brant Bjork, bassist/vocalist Nick Oliveri and drummer Ryan Güt made their debut with the early-2021 livestream ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ (review here), the audio for which was released that Spring as Live in the Mojave Desert Vol. 4 (review here) and followed by that Summer’s Stoners Rule (review here), on Heavy Psych Sounds. And if Stoners Rule was the trio testing the waters of their songwriting, renewing the decades-long, on-off collaboration between Bjork and Oliveri — whose pedigree probably doesn’t need to be recounted but between them includes Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Queens of the Stone Age, Mondo Generator, solo work of various stripes and more besides — then they’re doing so was like an act of teenage graffiti sloppily spraypainting the words of its title on the outside wall of the local high school.
The second Stöner full-length, Totally…, also arrives through Heavy Psych Sounds and is the equivalent of the same ne’er-do-wells, perhaps while smoking out by the loading dock of the very same high school, asking if you want to go to a party. The pepperoni pizza on the cover — definitively cut as though the listener, perhaps if properly stöned, might reach in and grab a slice — is a flag bearing the hallmark of both generation and ethos. Oliveri and Bjork may or may not actually have been those kids, I don’t know, but they’re not at all trying to hide where they’re coming from as Totally… opens with “Party March,” which is essentially the two of them talking about different kinds of parties for a verse over a suitably marching riff and echoing chorus of “Party! Party!” before Oliveri, in a bit of honesty, mentions the voices in his head saying “march! march! march! march!”
It is the first of eight tracks on the 37-minute album, and it’s about three-quarters of a song. That sounds like I’m ragging on it, but I’m not, because it speaks to the entire philosophy of what Stöner does in stripping away all the parts of what Bjork and Oliveri do as songwriters — and I won’t minimize Güt‘s contributions here just because the dude wasn’t in Kyuss; he killed it on the first record and he holds these riffs together as only a classic swing drummer can — and rediscovering the feeling of writing songs about nothing more than partying, as on that opener and the subsequent “A Million Beers,” and whatever the heck is going on in “Space Dude & The Burn” or “Driving Miss Lazy.” There’s no pretense otherwise.
At a time when bands throughout the heavy underground are giving in on impulses to comment either about politics, the environment, a genuine plague, etc., Stöner instead find their comfort not through presenting their hot takes on social media or in their songs, but in a kind of hazy nostalgia. That’s not to say that “Stöner Theme” doesn’t have its confrontation with stigma — one is reminded of “Hey, Monkey Boy” from Bjork‘s 2003 album, Keep Your Cool, at least in the song’s construction — but even that’s relatively low stakes.
This was refreshing on Stoners Rule and it is here as well, and Totally… adds to the band’s dynamic in a way that skirts the issue of stagnation; certainly an underlying threat for a band trying to keep it simple across multiple releases. “A Million Beers” is a rager, but “Strawberry Creek (Dirty Feet)” is a mid-paced nodder that, like “Party March,” features vocals intertwining from both Oliveri and Bjork, and where the latter fronted most of the songs last time around, on Totally… that line is blurred somewhat, and so is the line of apparent sourcing in terms of who wrote what. Stöner, to repeat, have become a real band.
“Space Dude & The Burn” tops eight minutes and is the longest track on the album, stopping at two minutes in to riff out en route to Oliveri‘s declaration “We don’t really care what you think…” and the eventual beginning of the jam that will comprise the song’s middle third before they lock in one more groove to cap. It finds something of a mirror in album-closer “Great American Sage” as Bjork intones the hook that could also serve as a mission statement for the band, “Tell all the world/Every boy and girl/If it ain’t got soul/Then it ain’t no rock and roll.” An old sentiment, yeah, but that’s the point, and better said than Bob Seger.
Just two and a half minutes, “Stöner Theme” also provides an intro to side B similarly to “Party March” leading into “A Million Beers,” as its languid, purposefully sloppy unfolding gives over to the chug at the start of “Turn it Around Now,” an even-fuzzier, single-worthy mellow hook with Bjork out front and Oliveri backing in the chorus — less stage-ready-raucous and a bit longer at five minutes than even “Strawberry Creek (Dirty Feet)” let alone “A Million Beers,” but a good time in its own right — and the subsequent “Driving Miss Lazy” goes back to ground in giving both mic time over a riff that’s thick enough to make even a discerning listener blush. They’ll share duties one more time on “Great American Sage,” Güt complementing with cowbell here and there as they roll into the finale, which sounds improvised at least to some degree and becomes an appropriate mess of noise before it finally falls apart and leaves Oliveri to deliver the title-line in bluesy style. Soul, then, abounds.
The response to Stoners Rule was divided, at least from what I saw, and while some of this material feels like it was written specifically with touring in mind — i.e., written to be played live — I don’t think Totally… is trying to change anyone’s mind so much as brazenly, unrepentantly doing its own thing. If so inclined, one can read progression in the increase in shared vocals between Bjork and Oliveri, the fluidity of the changes throughout “Space Dude & The Burn” or “Turn it Around Now” or even “Great American Sage,” but doing so feels a bit like missing the point, and with a band so intentionally casual there’s no guarantee that any path one might come out of Totally… feeling like the band are on is going to hold over to the next LP.
So maybe, if you can (and if you can’t, that’s okay) shove all that shit to one side for half an hour or so and enjoy Stöner for what they are and what they represent. Grab a slice, stick your phone in your pocket for a bit, and hang out. If that is a vision of escapism from the various horrors of our day, you could do far, far worse. Party on.
Stöner, Totally… (2022)
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Tags: Brant Bjork, California, Heavy Psych Sounds, Indio, Stoner, Stöner Totally..., Totally...
Such a nice album; much prefer it to their debut. Has that sweet Bjork smooth vibe