Thinning the herd-Oceans rise

St Mark's
2011

With some albums I get a bead on it right away and boom my impressions of it are formed. Other albums it takes a while for me to come to a conclusion. This album fell into that second category in fact I listened to it twice sat down to write about it still didn't feel like I had a good handle on it. So I walked a way from it for a couple of days, came back and played it again. For whatever reason this on go around I was able to put opinions together. Thinning the herd hail from New York and play a blend of stoner rock with a fair amount of grunge stirred in. I think what through me on this was with the dark cover and the thick heaviness that initially hit my ears I was expecting a moodier album. However this is a relatively more upbeat and lively style of stoner rock than most. They have their grooves down, but I think I was expecting it to be slightly darker. Either way this is a dirty, fuzzed out romp that wastes little time and moves straight ahead. Reminds me some of the fury of Sasquatch mixed with elements of Soundgarden. It's a fairly basic outing, but never pretends to be more than what it is. They give me the impression that would be a killer live act as well. Decent outing overall.