Labels: Shifty
Review by: Kunal Nandi
Seriously, pick a Shifty Records release at random, and you’re practically contract-bound to end up having a good time. Although the roster varies far and wide both stylistically and geographically, you can be assured of some quality stoner rock entertainment, whilst getting something so much more than that. Rue is yet another band that doesn’t tread too far into alien territory, yet they remain wholly welcome with what they have to bring to the table.
Rue come by way of that particularly virulent strain of booze and hemp-fuelled riff addiction that begins at Kyuss, before being circumvented via EyeHateGod, and ends well before boring rehashed (pun probably intended) desert-rock or strung-out extreme doom comes in. The first thing to mention is that the vocals are mostly roared, adding a poisonously whisky-sozzled fug to proceedings. They are the hardcore element that keeps things unpredictable and heavy. The guitar lines use densely mean melodics to keep things tolerable, with the combined effect being deceptively clever headbanging fun. Blaze up, drink up, get fucked up.