Sixty Watt Shaman - Reason To Live Review

Posted by Evocator Manes on 09.26.2002

The grooves are present and so accounted and eager to serve.

There is nothing that will set off certain authors or bands more than trying to label them or their works with tags. As someone who is on both sides of the controversy, I can understand why bands hate to be categorized and pigeon-holed, but on the other side (and this is why we keep doing it, kids), as reviewers, it is much easier to review something if it fits neatly into something already defined (though we may call them flat, stale, boring, uninspired and unoriginal, but that’s a whole other story. Let’s us stay on topic, shall we?). Sixty Watt Shaman is one of those bands who trespasses lightly in a genre-hopping skip and gives all of us reviewers nightmares.

It would be easiest to leave it at calling them stoner rock and leave it at that, but even perennial stoner rock kings, Queens Of The Stone Age, are adding enough other elements to have that description be incomplete. Besides, we here at 411 are not about easy. We’re all about quality. With that in mind, SWS also combines elements of straightforward rock, southern rock, blues and blends it all into a comfortable groove. While they foray into the realms of harder stuff at times, this disc best illustrates the world of difference between hard rock and heavy metal, as SWS gets frequently to the former level while never approaching the latter.

The near-psychedelic production by Scott Reeder (ex-Kyuss) does lend credence to the stoner tag, as the instruments all have a unique tone and gritty flavor to them. The drums in particular sound fantastic, making a nice counterpoint the urgent and raspy road-weary vocals, often without any other instruments. The band insists that relatively few overdubs were done, lending a live air and feel to every song on the disc. The album even includes a drum solo, which is odd for a studio album, but very fitting here. Even the song titles ring beautifully, majestically and with pure resonance. Take, for example, Horse You Rode In On and Our Name Is War . Good and catchy, but not the greatest ever, right? But can you truly not shake your head in admiration at the peal of One Good Leg And A Bottle Of Booze ? It is astonishingly breathtaking, que no?

The record does have one nagging problem, this time an illustration of the concept of “too much of a good thing”. The album starts off with a bang, on the fast and furious Nomad , and continues on at the same clip through the next song, the title track Reason To Live . Loading an album with strong songs up front is a standard practice along with keeping solid momentum going for at least the next little while. Up until Song 6, this album does exactly that. Tracks 6 and 7 are where it runs into trouble, but it picks up again on #8 – which also boasts another truly momentous title, one of the best ever really, The Evil Behavior Of Ordinary People – and with a few more missteps, gallops bravely onward to the end in a rush of sheer firepower.

Scott Reeder and Wino join the band as guests for an impromptu jam on the last listed song or actually, I should say, combat the band on the last song. The song was recorded with Reeder, Wino and amps on one side, the guitar-bass duo of SWS on the other, with the drums and vocalist, singing through a PA, in the middle. The songs reconstructs nicely into molten slag at the end, which is how any true fan would have it. Even the country-tinged bonus song is strong, easily of the best tracks on the disc. Still, at 17 tracks, the album itself is too long. Had the band cut at least five of those songs, it would have been a much stronger and consistent listen.

As it is, the unevenness hampers what could be a monumental disc and forces this reviewer to deduct accordingly. As I have a pre-release disc, I cannot comment on the artwork, but can tell you that the title track bears absolutely no relation to the dippy KISS song of the same name, which itself was a poorly-done theft of a dippy Foreigner song called I Want To Know What Love Is .