Rodeo - (2017) Rodeo

Rodeo is a stoner rock band from Zestoa, Spain. Their take on rock is one to be heard by all the followers of the scene, both new and old.

I take it upon myself to check out everything that floats down the river of the "stoner rock" canal. Believe you me, that's an unrelenting task sometimes. You have to wade through murky waters, where others fear to tread. Every once in awhile it pays off and you come across something pretty special. Rodeo is one those times.

Not being sung in English is already one strike against the typical music I enjoy, so when an album is completely in Basque it really has to have something going on to keep my attention. The self-titled debut from Rodeo here has that attention gathering thing going on and the Basque vocals do not distract from the grooves that lay within the melodies.

The influences are quite clear right out of the gate, you can tell these guys have a love for all things Kyuss and it shows throughout the album. Kyuss being one of my favorite bands of all time, I get that. I never get tired of hearing that type of desert rock inspiration. I'm willing to bet they even named the band after the Kyuss song but that's just a guess.
(Update: Confirmed by the band. I love being right.)

Some might say it's just another "cloner band" or that the stoner rock scene is drying up and that everything being released is just a regurgitation of something else. I say, that's been the case since day one in music, everything is borrowed from something else. Rodeo puts their own spin on a tried and true formula that has my ears quite pleased. Too much of a good thing is never enough. Bandcamp.

 -Adam Walsh