Review by Daniel for Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley (1994)
Kyuss’ second album “Blues For The Red Sun” had brought the band to my attention in a big way. The weaknesses that had plagued their debut album “Wretch” were all but gone & what we were left with was a far more focused & professional sounding record. The levels of production, musicianship & song-writing had all been noticeably improved upon & the incorporation of some additional psychedelic influences had added another layer of complexity for the listener. I was lucky enough to witness Kyuss putting in a superb performance whilst supporting Metallica in 1993; a set that included sneak previews of a couple of tracks that would eventually end up on “Welcome To Sky Valley” (namely “Odyssey” & “Gardenia”). It would be a wait of more than a year before the album would finally become available to the public but I was very keen to see what it had in store for me.
Whereas “Blues For The Red Sun” had sounded noticeably different to Kyuss’ previous couple of releases, “Welcome To Sky Valley” followed a fairly similar musical path to its older brother. All of the elements that captured me previously were there but somehow they seemed even more engaging this time. I’m not sure if there is more psychedelic material on this occasion but I think the trippier moments are perhaps more confident & expansive. Josh Homme’s guitar playing has again improved remarkably & he attempts some substantially more challenging ideas on this record. It may be the first time that he has sounded completely in control of his instrument to my ears. John Garcia’s vocals are as gripping & vital as ever. He is certainly helped by some really high quality song-writing though as there are plenty of hooks & highlights to draw the listener in.
Strangely the album is arranged into three suites with each featuring three or four seemingly unrelated songs. I really have no idea as to why they structured things this way & I have to admit that I find it a bit annoying. I’d much prefer to be able to skip from song to song whenever I wished rather than having to fast forward or sit through multiple tracks first. Obviously this isn’t a major concern but it’s worth noting nonetheless.
The first two suites are nothing short of stunning. This is stoner rock of the very highest quality. Unlike Kyuss’ previous releases I don’t find myself missing John Garcia’s vocals during the long instrumental sections. The band has finally found the ability to fully engage me on their own & it makes for a more enjoyable listening experience. The third suite starts off just as brilliantly as the first two but things start to flatten out a little in the middle before building up to another epic monster of a track at the end. “Demon Cleaner” is my favourite track on the album. It simply hits me the hardest. Having said that though I genuinely love tracks like “Gardenia”, “Asteroid”, “Space Cadet”, “Odyssey” & “Whitewater”. “N.O.” is really the only failure in my opinion. It’s not horrible but it is significantly less exciting than the rest of the album (or anything on “Blues For The Red Sun” for that matter). Unfortunately Kyuss have again included a completely pointless joke track at the end of the album. “Lick Doo” serves no purpose whatsoever other than to take some of the gloss off an otherwise very good album. It’s only a minute in length but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t leave me with a slightly bad taste in my mouth at the completion of the record.
“Welcome To Sky Valley” is for the most part a brilliant piece of work. It’s not as big a step up from the previous album as “Blues For The Red Sun” was from “Wretch” or “Wretch” was from “Sons Of Kyuss” but it definitely takes everything I liked about “Blues For The Red Sun” & pushes it even further. Its highlights are more impressive & there are more of them so I’d really like to score this release a little higher than I have. Unfortunately the couple of weaker songs have forced me to drop it back to a very respectable 4/5 but most of this album is as good an example of the stoner rock genre as I’ve heard.