Valley of the Sun
The Chariot

I wrote about their debut album some years ago, and now I am writing about their fourth album – nothing has really happened with their sound since then. The Stoner Rockers Valley of the Sun’s fourth album sounds more or less the same as the debut from almost a decade ago. In between these they have released another pair of albums, so despite the extra experience and chances to take in fresh ideas and perspective they haven’t really evolved at all.

Their stoner rock is about the tried and tested, it is well produced, solid singer, strong riffing, kind of what you can say about many stoner rockers. A bit long on the playing time, and small on the variation. No original thinking at all, they go for the tried and tested. Can you call that original? Or creative? No, I don’t think so, they are just another bunch of musicians that are more craftsmen than artists, music can be a creative thing, it is just too bad that most musicians aren’t creative. They write songs and stuff, but most bands just do variations on what someone else have already done, in the same ways at is has already been done.

Well, this album is fine, there isn’t really anything to complain about, the songs are good enough and nothing triggers the desire to stop listening. But how do you judge that, is that really good? Isn’t better with something dreadfully bad that has originality? Perhaps not for listening to it, but at least that shows an artist rather than a xerox-machine, like these guys can be considered. Take any stoner rocker and any song, change some wording and you have a song on this album – there is nothing more to it. But then again, they perform it really well and it is certainly not bad – so in reality I would like all these generic rockers to vanish from the face of the earth, but it would be wrong to give them awful ratings as well, the music isn’t bad and it is that, not the creativity that is the main criteria for rating the albums we review.

Too good to be bad, too dull to be remembered – kind of how I see this album, along with most albums released these days. Valley of the Sun offers nothing special, and nothing bad.

HHHHHHH