You might not be able to recognize the shape from its use in the cover image above, but SR-420 is a state road in Smoke Theory’s native Ohio that runs south of the rockers’ native Toledo as an offshoot of the Ohio Turnpike/I-80 highway system. I’ve driven past it before and gotten a chuckle from its weedian implications, and no doubt that’s what Smoke Theory had in mind as well in naming their new, self-released platter Junction 420. The disc, housed in a true, old school full jewel case but with inkjet artwork, is seven songs of straightforward, easygoing riff rock, not quite fuzzy in the dual guitars of Chris Graves and Mark Barbour, but not far from it and definitely taking influence from the stoner end of the spectrum. Even before the music starts, the title’s a big clue there.

When last heard from, Smoke Theory offered up their debut in the Blood and Sin EP, the sound of which was hampered by a digital compression that sounded like poor quality MP3s. The seven songs of Junction 420 suffer no such ailments, and while it’s still not the liveliest of productions – they’re DIY’ing it all the way and this is the age of the cheap but lifeless digital recording – everything is clear and gives a definite idea of what Graves, Barbour, bassist Dave Hamblin and drummer Don Hooligan want from the songs. As regards the production sound, Hooligan’s snare sound is bright and forward in the mix, probably more than it needs to be on a song like “Potbelly Parrot,” which otherwise is a highlight of the release, featuring Smoke Theory’s catchiest chorus of “Send me away to the taxidermist/Hang me on your wall/I’ll be satisfied.”

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Unpretentious Toledo rockers Smoke Theory — formerly known as Black Sheep Squadron — make their recorded debut with the self-released EP, Blood and Sin, cavorting with easy riding (widing?) riffs and a stoner rock mentality hewn from the likes of Kyuss, The Atomic Bitchwax and Suplecs.

…And that’s about it. So we’re done here, right?

Yes and no. As much as I hate saying so about an unsigned band, there’s not much to really dig into on Blood and Sin. Even the title is a dead giveaway — and naming a song “Burnt by the Sun” that isn’t actually about the band Burnt by the Sun just makes it seem like they’re not paying attention. Opener “Swamp” and instrumental follow-up track “Peace, Love and Strangulation” each have some cool riffs, as does “She’s a Closer” (showing that Suplecs influence, and being from Jersey, I’d throw Halfway to Gone and/or A Thousand Knives of Fire in there as well), but the recording on the black-spraypainted CDR sounds like a low quality mp3 stream and isn’t doing the songs any favors.

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