Muchas Gracias: The Best of Kyuss

Description

If Kyuss are to be remembered as the ultimate rock dinosaurs, it is, at least, probably a reputation they rather appreciate. Fuelled by an infinite sea of beer, inspired by the promise of loose women, and kept standing by the ingestion of any intoxicating chemical they could get their hands on, Kyuss used to play long, drugged-out heavy rock sets with their amplifiers pointed towards the desert horizon. Since their dissolution in the mid-1990s, they have achieved a reputation of near-legendary proportions. Meanwhile, band members Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri have gone on to court commercial success as narco-pop icons Queens Of The Stone Age. Sadly, Muchas Gracias serves mainly only to besmirch Kyuss' good name; much of this supposed Best Of consists of a number of alternative--and for that, you may also read "inferior"--takes on Kyuss standards. Sure, the likes of "50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)" and "Flip The Phase" offer a reasonable introduction to the down-tuned, bass-heavy grind of the stoner-rock sound. But compared to the riches on offer on their albums proper--see the mighty Blues For The Red Sun--Muchas Gracias finds Kyuss sounding uncharacteristically inadequate. Not a reputation, one guesses, they would be especially happy with. --Louis Pattison