Attalla proudly wear their Black Sabbath influence on their collective sleeve. However, they have some work ahead of them if they want to be in the league with other stoney bands like Sabbath, Electric Wizard, or Weedeater. There’s a lethargy that hangs over these recordings that make listening to this a bit of slog. Maybe they smoked too much weed in the studio. But there this “just get it done and let’s go home” vibe to these songs. Things pick up with “Lust.” The bass could use a touch more distortion, but that just might be my preference. The tempo on this song is more up than the prior two, and there’s more going on in the overall structure to make it more of an interesting listen. The singer sounds a hell of a lot like Danzig, which I found more preferable than the “growly, shouty dude” style that seems to be in many of the contemporary stoner rock bands. The second half of “Thorn” is pretty good, recalling later period Ozzy-era Sabbath (these riffs sound familiar, as well as the change up). “Veil” may be the best of the bunch. It rocks more than the others, with the quick tempo, and the drums coming to the fore. More songs like this in the future, please! Plus the sinister guitar tone in the opening of “Doom” is nice, with its dark and dirty feel, as though evil lurks around the corner. Attalla aren’t terrible. They just have some more work to do on their sound. The elements are there. Lose the first couple songs from this disc and focus on creating more like what’s on the last half.
–M.Avrg (Attalla, [email protected])