Mass Solace is available now

Incognito pick of the week: Blondstone

Eastern France is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think about heavy rock bands. However, our pick of the week is just that: a heavy rock band from Nancy, France.

Blondstone is a band that might be hard to classify into a category smaller than just rock. I suppose you could file it into the doom rock category, or some subset of that. And it does have some elements of doom. But it also has elements of groove rock. For a great example, just listen to “Oulala.” The bass line in this one will get you moving for sure. This song kind of reminds me of Deep Purple, especially since it is punctuated with some screams that would make Richie Blackmore proud.

This band isn’t afraid to change tempo pretty dramatically even within one song. In “On Your Own,” the verse is pretty groovy, but then in the chorus the band gets both faster and louder. I imagine that experiencing this song live would be pretty interesting. I imagine that in the chorus, a circle pit would form and bodies would start slamming into each other.

This band also dives a little into psychedelic sounds, especially in “Daze Me.” The instrumental breaks in this song sound a little trippy with some fuzzed-out guitar.

However you want to classify it, Mass Solace is a really good rock album. Like any good rock album, this one begs to be played loudly. Seriously, don’t be concerned with your neighbors. Crank the volume as loud as you can handle it because this is rock n roll, baby! And you know what they say, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old!” Mass Solace is available now.

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