Giant Haze – Cosmic Mother

Stoner rock has become a go-to style for many contemporary bands in recent years. However, in today’s music landscape, where artists and bands pop from all the possible parts of the globe on an almost daily basis, many of them fall for classic cliches, offering a repetitious, predictable, bland sound that directly points out their influences, reinvents the same old wheel, and mimic the sound crafted by the greats many years ago. Thankfully, there are bands like Giant Haze, who aim for a fresh, unique, innovative, and unpredictable sound that will immediately resonate with anyone who not only loves stoner rock music but also appreciates cleverly assembled and flawlessly performed music. “Cosmic Mother,” their debut full-length album released on all streaming platforms today, exemplifies how stoner rock still has so much to offer, even after many decades since its initial initiation. With twelve incredible compositions, capable of convincing even the pickiest fans of the genre, Giant Haze not only explores the stoner rock but reinvent this marvelous genre. Although stoner rock is their primary weapon in the arsenal, you’ll immediately notice how so many other complementary styles found their way into this ear-appealing sonic equation. Some of the finest properties borrowed from rock ‘n’ roll, classic rock, hard rock, doom rock, sludge, and metal lurk around, making this comprehensive collection even more appealing to the ears. The band uses all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift these songs to an entirely new level while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. Giant Haze employs various technques and different approaches in order to shape such a uniformed sound that embraces all the qualities of modern music production yet shines with subtle touches of nostalgia. Therefore, these experimentations with various approaches, different techniques, and many complementary styles resulted in a collection of catchy, memorable, engaging stoner rock songs that will definitely resonate with a broader auditorium.

As soon as you press play, you’ll notice that these folks are not joking around with their music. “Cosmic Mother” is a thoughtfully planned, expertly assembled, and flawlessly performed album without any flaws. Each composition arrives with a perfect structure, adorned with many profoundly detailed segments, brilliant ideas, and superb orchestrations, suitable for even the pickiest listeners. This level of dedication to the craft is rarely heard or seen on debut recordings, and Giant Haze completely nailed it with everything by demonstrating their tremendous songwriting, composing, arranging, and producing abilities. From the onset, you’ll notice how the vocal performance serves as a centerpiece, elevating everything to new heights, commanding attention, and guiding listeners on this epic sonic journey from scratch to finish. The soulful, passionate, sincere, confident, emotive, powerful vocal harmonies seamlessly balance low, mid, and high notes while simultaneously containing a touch of rawness, abrasivenes, and grit, emphasizing everything the remainder of Giant Haze intended to acheive with this material. Besides decorating all these segments and instrumentations, the vocal performance contributes more than necessary emotional depth and complexity to an already intricate song structure. Besides profoundly soulful and melodic vocals, you’ll also notice how some screams and shouts found their way here. There are also addiitonal vocal layers, back vocals, and occasional sing-alongs, spicing things up and giving these songs more colossal vibes. In the meantime, the interplays between guitars shape a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. You’ll hear how those colossal, heavy, powerful, aggressive supreme reign supreme throughout the entire album, yet there are all those additional leads, themes, melodies, harmonies, and other sonic maneuvers lurking around and elevating everything to an entirely new level. It’s nearly mindblowing how all these layers articulate together without overwhelming each other, making this album even more pleasant to the ears. Also, it’s good to mention that these guitar works perfectly pair vocals, to the point they blend together harmoniously.

Of course, this majestic album wouldn’t be complete without an equally brilliant rhythm section. Beneath all those lush guitar works, basslines rumble with all those intricate, vividly hearable, warm-sounding low-end notes, contributing more heaviness, depth, and clarity while also serving as a binding element that merges the mentioned instrumentations with rhythmic patterns. These basslines are rich, deep, dense, and heavy, contributing more groove and detail to these songs. In the meantime, the exceptional drumming performance based upon wisely arranged, flawlessly performed, well-accentuated, dynamic beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keeps everything in line while dictating groove and pace. Each hit of the snare, kick of the bass drum, accentuation over hi-hit, and splash over cymbals cuts the ambiance with such precision, adding more detail to these tracks. As soon as you can see, Giant Haze poured heart and soul into this marvelous album, making one of the finest debuts you’ll hear in a while. Although the entire album shines in the limelight, and it’s nearly impossible to pick favorite song when they all sound so good, tracks like “Geographic Gardens Suck,” “King Of Tomorrow,” “Yard Of Oblivion,” “Sundance,” “From Another World,” “Crank In Public,” “1000 Tons Of Stone,” and “Shink Age” are standouts of this material. This album will immediately grab you by the collar and refuse to let go long after the last notes and beats end. It’s a modern stoner rock masterpiece where all the skills, creativity, talent, experience, and knowledge of these fascinating musicians shine in the limelight. Therefore, head to your favorite streaming platform and listen to “Cosmic Mother” loud!