Review & Track Premiere: Fatso Jetson and Dali’s Llama, Legends of the Desert Vol. 3 Split LP
[Click play above to stream the premiere of Fatso Jetson’s ‘Night of the Living Amends’ from the Legends of the Desert Vol. 3 split with Dali’s Llama, out March 24 through Desert Records. Preorder available on Bandcamp here.]
New Mexico imprint Desert Records launched its ‘Legends of the Desert’ split series in 2020 by bringing together Palehorse/Palerider and Lord Buffalo (discussed here and here), and Legends of the Desert Vol. 2 (review here) followed, with The Penitent Man and Cortége resting side-by-side in furthering the stated objective of honoring a new generational interpretation of who and what ‘legends’ means and the notion that ‘desert’ as applies to music doesn’t just have to mean ‘sounds like Kyuss.’ With Cali desert scene co-progenitors Fatso Jetson and perpetually undervalued grit rockers Dali’s Llama on Legends of the Desert Vol. 3, the series pivots toward two different kinds of legends.
Fatso Jetson arrive after releasing Live From Total Annihilation (review here) last year through Ripple Music in collaboration with All Souls, marking a noteworthy return with their first new material since 2016’s Idle Hands (review here), having played live shows and toured all the while, conditions permitting. They are legends in an underground sense and a band around whom the ‘generator party’ narrative of off-grid punk birthing a new generational interpretation of heavy has rightly coalesced, with guitarist/vocalist Mario Lalli — also of Yawning Man and lately the improvisational unit Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snake Charmers — as ambassador for band and scene alike, surrounded by family with cousin Larry Lalli on bass as always, son Dino Von Lalli on guitar and the not-actually-related-but-might-as-well-be-at-this-point Tony Tornay (also of All Souls) on drums. As a unit, they are largely unfuckwithable and have been for some time.
The perpetually DIY Dali’s Llama formed more or less concurrently to Fatso Jetson in 1993, and have over the years approached desert rock from alternately bluesy, country, punk and gothic angles (among others), the founding duo of guitarist/vocalist Zach Huskey and bassist Erica Huskey likewise unpredictable conceptually and reliable in terms of songwriting and performance across a wide discography, the last installment of which was 2021’s Dune Lung EP (review here), which was itself a follow-up to 2019’s umpteenth full-length, Mercury Sea (review here). Here as on those two releases and others prior, the band operates as a four-piece, with Joe Dillon on guitar and backing vocals and Craig Brown on drums, presenting four songs in complement to Fatso Jetson‘s own and showcasing some of the aural diversity — looking at you, banjo-as-sitar on “Rarified” — that’s part of what makes them so recognizable.
Dali’s Llama get the longer side, as their four cuts weigh in at 22 minutes. Fatso Jetson‘s four are shorter on average — 17 minutes total — but they go first, with Mathias Schneeberger on keys and the instrumental “Night of the Living Amends” as the opener and longest piece of side A nestling comfortably into a signature Fatso Jetson groove; part surf rockabilly, part punk, smoothly toned and loosely exploratory, finding the place where solid ground and psychedelia meet. On the subsequent “Angels Flight,” they bring in vocalist Sean Wheeler (also Throw Rag and a regular with The Rubber Snake Charmers) to join Mario on vocals, but the hypnotic and immersive effect of “Night of the Living Amends” remains even as the first verse starts. Almost before you realize it, they’ve pulled you into the proceedings with them and are underway.
“Angels Flight” feels like a semi-revisit to/fleshing-out-of a progression from “Jolting Tales of Tension” off of 2010’s Archaic Volumes (review here, discussed here), with lyrics from Wheeler overlaid and pedal steel from Gar Robertson for a differentiated wistfulness. Gentle in its delivery compared to some of the band’s output, it’s a highlight melody for Legends of the Desert Vol. 3 and precedes the forward shove of Tornay‘s kick drum on “Todas Petrol Blues,” another smoothly executed instrumental picking up from its fading-in guitars with a burst of energy sustained through a winding sans-vocal chorus and rumbling to a finish before the three-minute “One of Seven” digs into a more traditional hook, the mellow verse giving over to the rousingly catchy lines “One of seven days/I let the hammer swing/I let the hammer swing.” If you’re thinking that’s a tune about being in a band that practices once a week, you might be onto something.
That song’s straight-ahead rocker vibe, still fleshed out with Fatso Jetson‘s interplay of guitar, gives Dali’s Llama a suitable lead-in as they launch side B with “Coyotes in the Graveyard.” Zach and Erica Huskey, Dillon and Brown set out with a fuzzy roller of a riff and Zach‘s bluesy vocal delivery, immediately set to their task of craft. Heavy and laid back in kind, “Coyotes in the Graveyard” is traditional in structure and somewhat darker in atmosphere, but that’s a wheelhouse for Dali’s Llama, and “Lizards” highlights an even thicker tone in the guitars and bass, while the chorus, “Where I’m from there are no wizards/Where I’m from there’s only lizards,” positions them decisively in the desert. They get their point across in paying homage to the landscape itself, and the line transitioning to the hook, “Here the water is the king,” seems to call back to “King Platypus” from 2008’s Full On Dunes (review here) while of course crowning another creature. Long live the lizard.
The previously-mentioned “Rarified” is next, with more of a swing amid its central chug and the start-stop riff behind the chorus before the noted banjo-inclusive break, unexpected and welcome as it is with a comparatively minimal feel during that stretch before a cymbal wash and drumroll brings a solo and chorus return that feels all the more forceful for the subdued place the song has just been. The longest inclusion on the split at 6:22, “Rarified” uses its time well, and gives over to the readily Sabbathian stonerism of “Hypnotic Wind,” with a more forward vocal from Zach and languid movement into its more open chorus. Like much of what Dali’s Llama do, it’s a manipulation of style with a solid structural foundation beneath, accounting for the doomier elements of “Coyotes in the Graveyard” and tying together their side as an EP unto itself with a late push and cowbell-on-board big rock ending.
Geography aside, what Fatso Jetson and Dali’s Llama most have in common is their lack of pretense about who they are. In a true spirit of rugged individualism, these acts of long-standing come together for Legends of the Desert Vol. 3 not necessarily to celebrate their prior accomplishments, but to demonstrate to anyone who might encounter the release the self-determined attitude that got them where they are. In a genre that is underrated as a whole, they deliver arguments in favor of this through their efforts, and like mystical tales known to a select few, their respective legends continue to grow. Maybe there are wizards out there after all.
Tags: California, Dali's Llama, Fatso Jetson, Legends of the Desert, Legends of the Desert Vol. 3, Palm Desert, Various Artists Legends of the Desert
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