ATTALLA - S/T

Marrying the stoned swagger of early Sabbath to the leafiest of '70s hard rock, this Wisconsin quartet don't so much go back in time as stop time itself. Lumbering, doomed-out rhythms roll forward and engulf the listener in a lysergic haze, while the thick 'n' moist riffs pulse and pound with an insistence that's totally entrancing. In fact, the album's cryptic song titles - chronologically "Light," "Haze," "Lust," "Thorn," "Veil," and "Doom" - vividly portray the trip to come. Too dark for regular hard rock but still committed to its earthier values without traversing into proto-metal territory, Attalla could verily be a sonic document of 1973, unearthed today. And yet, undeniably retro as the record may be, ATTALLA brim with a potency that's timeless and wholly appealing to a wide swath of rock and metal listeners, and in vocalist Cody Stieg, the band has a great ROCK voice not unlike The Cult's Ian Astbury. Spark up and drop out!