As a massive fan, I try to limit how often I throw out comparisons to Kyuss (And, to a lesser extent, Queens of the Stone Age) but with Greenleaf, it’s kinda hard not to as it’s rightly deserved. “Good God I Better Run Away” in particular is like this ferocious forging of Kyuss’ Desert-soaked fuzz and Hermano’s honed wall of sound with Josh Homme’s velveteen voice as is opener “Tides” which has guitarist Tommi Holappa rippin’ it up like Homme used to during his early days. And now that that’s out of the way let’s get to the rest of Echoes From A Mass, shall we?
“Tides” is silky smooth and soulful like classic Kings Of Leon (Christ, am I that old that there’s such a thing as “classic Kings Of Leon”?) meets QOTSA with the way Arvid Hällagård’s voice is both direct yet delicate as Hans Fröhlich and Sebastian Olsson provide an auditory onslaught in the bass and drum department which bombard listeners like crashing waves onto rocks on the shore.
The aforementioned “Good God I Better Run Away” is pure, quintessential Desert Rawk through and through fueled by mighty riffage from Holappa while “Needle In My Eye” is all snazzy and sneaky in the way it slithers in with a voluminous sound, capped off by a thunderous chorus.
“Love Undone” sexily slams into yer earholes raining down piles of voluptuous sonic delight with Olsson providing a particularly raucous performance and then “Bury Me My Son” transcends into Unida/Hermano territory slightly with the grooves weighing heavily throughout the precedings as Fröhlich’s bass takes center stage during a particularly righteous breakdown.
“A Hand Of Might” sounds about how you’d imagine with a name like that, “Hang On” is large and gnarly and groovy and bluesy, and “On Wings Of Gold” is a grand, sprawling behemoth taking up almost 400 seconds of your time with Hällagård delivering lines like a mystical musical shaman with the way his voice hums and vibrates as it mesmerizes. Keeping on that spiritual kick, “What Have We Become” locks it all down for one last gasp as this burgeoning beauty expands from a downtrodden demagogue to an uplifting unifier that really brings the room together with its’ shapely story.
Echoes From A Mass arrives on March 26th through Napalm Records. Pre-orders are up now here and here and for the latest on Greenleaf, you can follow them on their socials by clicking here and here.