Puny Human-Universal Freak Out

Small Stone
2007

New York's Puny Human have released their third full length album and it took me a few spins to sort out my thoughts on it. It's rather basic stoner style that draws on Deep Purple almost as much as they draw on Sabbath. Yet the vocals and overall approach has some definite modern elements present. What I like about it is that they content to take their time and allow us to hear every nuance of the music and that's a bit plus. They also at least comparatively they use a relatively low dose of fuzz in their music. I think that works in giving them a more stripped down feel to their music and that particular sound works fairly well with what they are doing because they play a rather basic style. The downside would be that you have heard a lot of this before and by some bands that are more creative and quite a bit tighter. There are a few times where Puny Human break out of the pattern and slip in an unexpected jam with some truly cool riffs, but those moments are few and far between. If you do this kind of music then you really have to bring something to it. At this point in time we have all heard Black Sabbath and Deep Purple many times over plus many of their imitators so you have to really reach out and have it together if you think you are going to add something new to the mix. Puny Human do a little, but not enough that they are really going to stand out. Also the vocals were just very average, but they didn't really stand out or add a great deal. A decent album overall, but not as good as I was hoping for.

http://www.myspace.com/Puny_Human