Prepare for total amplifier worship: ATTALLA's self-titled debut album, set to be released by SHADOW KINGDOM RECORDS on CD, cassette, and digital formats. 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!
