Album Of The Day-Sixty Watt Shaman-"Seed Of Decades" (2000)

Today I proclaim the Album Of The Day to be "Seed Of Decades" by Sixty Watt Shaman. Enjoy!



Review:

And you thought rock was dead. Sure, lately it may be infused with a hip-hop gene to make it come back to life, kind of like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, but I'm here to allay your fears, to calm your disturbed nights. Rock is not dead. Sixty Watt Shaman will make sure of that.

Springing up in Maryland like psilocybin mushrooms, the band has emerged almost fully formed from the stoner rock underground to become one of the tightest outfits you've never heard of, but you will. After having spent the last months of 2000 out on the Tore Up From the Floor Up Tour with COC and Clutch, they'll get exposure to a wider audience in need of new guitar heroes and soulful straight up rock.

Rounded out by an eclectic crew consisting of Big Dan Kerzwick on vocals, Joe Selby ripping it up on guitar, the tattooed wildman Reverend Jim Forrester on bass, and C.J. Dukehart III pounding on the drums, Seed of Decades, the band's major label debut, holds nothing back. Clocking in at over an hour, the album literally never ends, nor do you want it to. Each track is distinctive and not one of them is put on the album to make space around the hits. They're all hits.

Songs like Red Colony, which begs for rescue off this forsaken planet by our Martian forefathers, displays the raw power of the band. Opening with a transcendent backwards guitar frolic, it transforms into a hard hitting metal grinder with a howl from Big Dan, and Big Dan can howl. He takes this track, and many of the others on the album, to Phil Anselmo levels, and then some. But we're also blessed with some excellent guitar work in the solo, where Joe Selby digs in and rips out the tones without compromising the heaviness.

For further evidence of Big Dan's capabilities, look no further than Stone's Throw Away where he sustains a scream for a solid 15 seconds (who else has the sac to do that in this day and age?), or Roll the Stone where his voice brings to mind the soulful rasp of Rod Stewart. Straddled by a Zeppelinesque arrangement, complete with mandolin, the song also gives you a taste of the players in the band.

After one listening, you come to realize that Joe Selby is a brilliant guitarist, and as bold a statement that is, the evidence on this album gives little doubt. You can hear the purist's approach, the method of the guitar connoisseur, steeped in plenty of Jimi Hendrix, as evidenced in the sustained vibrato in the title track Seed of Decades, and plenty of Clutch, like the opening of Fear Death By Water. The Clutch influence runs even deeper as J.P. Gaster, the genius on the skins for Clutch, served as the album's producer. Is it any wonder that C.J. Dukehart sounds like John Bonham reincarnated?

If I were to have one complaint about the album it would be that the influences shine through almost shamelessly, from Pantera's growl to Hendrix's guitar virtuosity, but that's not really a complaint. It's a compliment. (James Pearce, Blistering.com)

Track Listing:

01. Fear Death by Water
02. Seed of Decades
03. Poor Robert Henry
04. Devil in the Details (part 1)
05. Devil in the Details (part 2)
06. Low Earth Orbit
07. One More Time
08. Roll the Stone
09. Red Colony
10. Rumor Den
11. Stone's Throw Away
12. Busy Dying
13. New Trip
14. I've Been Down

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