Albums That Will F*ck Your Face Off in 2013: Romero, Take the Potion
Romero
Take the Potion (Grindcore Karaoke)
Release date – January 29, 2013
Like most of the civilized world, I got really fucking sick of stoner-doom about two or three years ago. Even Southern Lord — the classiest of stoner-doom labels— started putting out hardcore records. Then a few weeks ago, I stumbled onto Romero’s Solitaire EP via Grindcore Karaoke (a site that you should be as obsessed with as I am). And like that, I was upended. The big, droning chords; the thunderous, sneakily-proficient drums; the Sleep’s Holy Mountain-esque howling; the hazy, focused-and-yet-relaxed pace… It was enough to remind me why I’d fallen so hard for any band with some Orange amps and a penchant for Black Sabbath way back when. Smoke a bowl or five and Romero will take you on the same sort of Weedian journey that the genre’s forefathers so boldly took. Listen to them sober and there’s still plenty to chew on. Basically, they learned from the mistakes of so many disposable, fuzzy weed metal bands.
And because 2013 is already shaping up to be a bruiser of a year for metal, Romero are releasing their debut full-length, Take the Potion, at the end of the month. For fucking free: all the band have done is set up a Kickstarter page to help fund vinyl pressings of the album. (And unlike Kickstarter enthusiasts who pay their contributors in beer and hugs, the band are giving away trinkets, shirts, and, er, postcards with donations.) And while it’s good karma to check out albums that bands are kind enough to give away for free, Take the Potion shows promise: the band write spacey songs that don’t delve into masturbatory territory; most songs thus far fall in the 5-7 minute range. They have as much of a penchant for muted Kyuss-style desert rock as they do for building-razing doom. It’ll be interesting to see what they can do with an entire album’s worth of songs. Though still pretty early in the year, there’s reason to believe Romero have a pretty good chance of fucking your face off. You have until January 29th to find a good plastic surgeon.
