Artist: Lonely Kamel
Title: Dust Devil
Type: Album
Label: Napalm Records

I was told by the editor when he sent this one out that it was by some “good ole boys” and I’d love their pure stoner sound. Well, I’ve always liked the sound of Southern rock, albeit not agreed with the more extreme politics sometimes associated with it, and I’m listening to more and more stoner these days (always good to go to a gig where grey hair and expanding waist line means you fit in rather then stand out!), so the omens were good. Better yet was the dirty laid back slide guitar of opening track ‘Grim Reefer’ a six minute blues ballad dedicated to good weed and the dangers of over indulgence in that same sweet leaf; Lonely Kamel, on this their third album, couldn’t display their Lynyrd Skynyrd influences any harder if they tried. Even the album title, ‘Dust Devil’ screams of the deserts of the American plains.

Track two, ‘Evil Man’ ups the pace with a chugging Harley Davidson of a riff, all simple muscle without any unnecessary finesse, just barely restrained power revving out of the speakers as the vocalist declares his propensity for murder and mayhem over a classic beat. This is swiftly followed by ‘Blues for the Dead’, bringing the sort of energy to a blues progression that is normally the remit of Clutch. Thrown into the mix is some heavier doom, the deep and menacing guitar riff that opens the near eight minute opus ‘Seventh Son’ showing that the band must have spent many hours listening to early Black Sabbath when developing their style, whilst the vocalist manages to capture the countrified snarl of a young Danzig before giving over the record to howls of layered psychedelic feedback.

This is a superlative album, and shows the work and development that has brought Lonely Kamel to this, their third album. Going from the straight heavy rock sound of ‘The Prophet’ to into the distorted fuzz of ‘Ragnarorkr’, every track is played with confidence and swagger. So, which part of the States do these “good ole boys” hail from? That’s right, Oslo. Not Oslo, the town in Minnesota, nor even Oslo in Florida, but Oslo, Norway. Whilst their musical contemporaries may have been dousing themselves in animal blood and screaming to Satan, Lonely Kamel sound like they were relaxing next to a lava lamp, with a giant spliff, whilst Hendrix was blasting out of the stereo. The band manage to sound timeless, without sounding dated, and are to be commended for it.

http://www.myspace.com/lonelykamel

Spenny Bullen

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