Boston rockers pull out the stops for their first in four years
Sasquatch, from Boston, are one of those bands who get called “stoner” by blokes like MV who look for lazy, quick epithets for bands.
Whatever “stoner” means – and we are never quite sure to be honest – it doesn’t seem to bother the three-piece, who calmly get on with the job of making nine, thumping pieces of heavy, driving rock that are shot through with a pulsing electricity and urgency.
And, as with all trio’s there is something just right about Sasquatch, nothing approaching fat and unnecessary, instead they straight down to business with “Rational Woman” which comes swinging with its biggest punches straight from the cheap seats. And by the time its hit you squarely on the jaw with its hook line “she don’t like me anyway,” then just like you’ve been hit by Anthony Joshua, brother you’re going down.
“More Than You’ll Ever Be” has the same kind of filthy intentions as Motorhead, before settling for a Corrosion of Conformity circa Wiseblood type of vibe.
What it – and indeed most of its brethren here – do better than many of the bands that are in the thrall of the dry as dust desert sound, is allow you to put your fists in the air for a good old metal freak-out if you want one, “Destroyer” is a boot to the balls and “Bringing Me Down” suckers you in by having more mellifluous dreams about its lead work, but the grit is in the bassline of Jason Casanova, who along with new sticksman Craig Riggs brings the heat into the engine room.
Not that lead guitar player and vocalist Keith Gibbs is found wanting at any point of this either, as he appears to have taken the title of The Wildhearts album “Riff After Riff” as an order, the instrumental “Just Couldn’t Stand The Weather” ushers itself in on the back of a fuzzy, Fu Manchu type one, but the others all have their own charms too.
“Drown All The Evidence” is a little slower and perhaps more infused with the blues, while “Anyway” is a screeching heads down rocker, that knows its way around the more psychedelic work of Hendrix rather more than anything Kyuss might have done.
Things end with a touch of keyboards and a swirl of Sabbath, and its chorus contains the vicious put down “baby, have you ever finished one goddamn thing?”
The sound of three men playing music because they love it, not because they have to. Such a vibe gives Sasquatch the air of a band with a devil-may-care attitude, but more importantly it makes “Maneuvers” quite superb.
Rating 8/10
