By: Peter Morsellino
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 07/02/2020
Label: Small Stone Records
“Explorer” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1). Vanguard
2). Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress
3). Explorer
4). 206
5). Seven Seas
6). Great Attractor
7). Grissom
8). The Buzzard
The Review:
Light em up if you got em, folks, we're going for a ride.
Is been eight long years since the last album by these West Virginian kings of the Acid Blues, but it is immediately apparent upon starting this bad boy up that Seven Planets has accumulated absolutely no rust. In only a touch over 35 minutes, this album takes you on a tour of the galaxy, leaving no stone unturned in their search for badass stoner jams and crushing riffs.
If there is one thing that is very clear when it comes to this release, it is that Seven Planets has not been sitting around for these past eight years. Taking time off to fight personal battles (guitarist Leonard Hanks' cancer diagnosis, for one) did not mean that the music was placed on the shelf. There is a very real feeling of release to this album. These sounds have been bouncing around these guys' heads for the past eight years and now that it has been released into the world, there is nothing that can stop it.
Continuing and expanding upon the path laid out by their previous albums, “Explorer” is a groove laden trek through the furthest reaches of Stoner Rock. The beats hit hard, the atmospheres are far out and the jams hit right in the sweet spot to take the listener to outer space before bringing them back down to earth with some balls out fist in the air riffage. It's a goddamn good time.
And that is really the undeniable fact about this album. It's just so much fun. Seven Planets could have come back from an eight year hiatus with a chip on their shoulder and laid down some angry trudging riffs and in all honesty it probably would have been awesome. But instead they have conquered their demons and released an album of triumphant joy.
This is a band that has gone through hell and returned to show us not only that hell, but the beauty that they've encountered on their way there and back. If you're looking for some fantastic acid grooves and progressive blues jams then this is the album for you.
