Miss Lava- Red Supergiant (Small Stone Records SS-141)

Miss Lava is a melodic indie stoner rock band from Portugal. The band lay down some pretty bad ass melodic stoner riffing (there are very few guitar solos) in these 43 mins and 11 tracks.  This is the bands 2^nd full length record but the first in 4 years. Desert Mind opens the CD and reminds a bit of Dozer but then moves in a different direction and is a great song with a lot of different dynamics and intensity. Lay Down is a really umtempo hard riffing track while Feel my Grace is more catchy, and less hard hitting, while Ride has a melodic theme but then a pretty heavy monster riff during the hard section and a short wah guitar solo, one of the rare ones on the record. Crawl comes up with another heavy riff and this one reminds me of Livin’ the Lore by WE (a bit). Hole to China slows things down with a more moody track, think Mars Red Sky. Catch the Fire a really rapid track that slows briefly in the middle where I would have liked it if they kicked in with a killer guitar solo but they just decide to riff the time away until the main chorus returns. Murder of Crows has a more complex structure and dynamic than nearly any other track on the record and they strangely reduce the volume of the vocals to quite low before a cool spacey section where they could have really done something cool but they don’t and return to the main riff and they go into a Nirvana like section towards the end. Yesterday’s Gone has a slower more stoney feel to it as it glides a bit to start before the heavy low end riff takes over. The title track ends the record and is a more melodic, slow and laid back track. The band has three promo videos out there for the tracks Ride, Feel my Grace and Yesterday’s Gone. Check them out as a great introduction to this record so you can make up your mind if this is what you want to add to your collection and crank up!

http://www.smallstone.com http://misslava.bandcamp.com/