Reviews for III...

Sleazegrinder

It’s been a long wait for III, the (you called it) third album from L.A. power trio Sasquatch. The band may have taken its time crafting this particular opus, but rest assured it’s worth the thumb-twiddling. Frontguy Keith Gibbs is in rare form, laying down the licks like a hybrid of every good heavy rock guitarist you can think of and singing with grizzled soul. There’s more here than just the sensual pleasure of the sounds, though. The threesome has always stood apart from the hordes of 70s rock revivalists because Gibbs writes actual songs, with melodies and arrangements, rather than just string a couple of power chords and a riff together. III collects a bunch of strong tunes that’ll bring out the air guitarist and head nodder/banger in anyone – check Bare My Soul, Complicated and the groovy, partially acoustic New Disguise for some particularly primo laying down of the rock & roll law. With Pull Me Under, the band even pulls Soundgarden out of its mothballs before the real band could do it. Hard rock, stoner rock, heavy music – whatever the fuck you call it, Sasquatch has it down, my friend.

- Michael Toland

StonerRock.com

In the pantheon of rock lyrics, there are few lines as stump dumb yet undeniably iconic as "You want it, you got it, baby." Sure, a vintage David Lee Roth yowl ranks higher, but that not only goes without saying but it also isn't even English.

It's telling that the above factors in the chorus of "Get Out of Here," the lead track on Sasquatch's third full-length (named, appropriated enough, III). While usually pegged as stoner rock, the Los Angeles-based three-piece is really an amped up and fuzzed out classic rock outfit. Take away guitarist/vocalist Keith Gibbs' Big Muff and dial back the distortion and what you get with these guys isn't too far removed from what American forebearers the Nuge, Grand Funk Railroad, and Montrose (well, at least the first album) were serving up and dishing out in the '70s.

It's a simple recipe, one almost as simple as the chorus to “Get Out of Here” - focus on not only the riff itself but on how well it leads into the chorus, which itself has to have the type of hook that's big without being overwhelmingly so. Time has shown that's easier said than done for most bands, but Sasquatch rises to the occasion on III. There's a surplus of catchy moments and well-crafted songs.

Sasquatch has always known their way around a barn-burner or two, and III's represented with “Took Me Away,” “Walkin' Shoes,” and “No More Time.” Sure, none of these songs quite match the one-two punch of II's “Barrel of a Gun” and “Seven Years to Saturn,” but it's not for a lack of trying. Where the band really outshines its previous material is on the slower burning material. “Pull Me Under,” “New Disguise,” and “Queen,” and “Bare My Soul” find fertile new ground in the “Love Done Me Wrong” category of blues-rock songwriting. I hate to wish ill on a band that I like, but if that's what it takes to get more tracks like these, well, so be it.

What's also notable about III is the wider, more confident range of songwriting. In addition to the numbers mentioned above and groove-friendly jams like “Soul Shaker,” “Leave It Up to You,” and “Burning Bridges,” the band branches out with the buoyant and almost radio-friendly “Complicated.” Hell, even “Walkin' Shoes” and “No More Time” burn with a brighter, peppier energy. It would have been easy to rely on the formula some could argue was pretty much perfected on their debut, but to the band's credit, they keep pushing themselves. Even better, they succeed at it.

It may have taken longer than expected, due to the departure of original bassist Clayton Charles (ex-Volume/Tummler four-stringer Jason “Cas” Casanova joins drummer Rick Ferrante in the rhythm section), but Sasquatch continues their winning streak with III. It may not be the best rock album of the year, but it's set the bar pretty damn high for 2010. You want it? Sasquatch has it, baby. Highly recommended.

- John Pegoraro

Broken Beard

All right, I swear to Satan I heard this one coming over a year ago. I live in a basement you see, surrounded by four walls of thick concrete foundation, and beyond that lay the cold, dark earth; it’s a windowless incubator with end-of-the-world charm that picks up the slightest underground vibrations. A speeding midnight train 25 miles away will shake me from my sleep like a hungry grizzly bear. So, naturally, the SECOND the bottom end bastards in Sasquatch hunkered down in whatever forest-deep, rickety tin shack they like to call home and started recording III, I FELT it, man. My teeth started to bleed.

What’s even crazier is that now that it’s finally here, III ain’t nearly as devastating as I or II, but I guess that’s like saying having an anvil dropped on your head will kill you less than being run over by a bulldozer. I suppose what I mean to say is III is a looser, groovier, knuckle-draggin’ record than any of its predecessors, which just means Sasquatch strips the meat from the bone before beating you with it. Dig the songs “Pull Me Under,” “Soul Shaker,” “New Disguise,” and “Leave It Up To You” for the best boogie-fried examples. Of course, there’s still plenty of heavy, speed freak, stoner fuzz on III to keep things honest, but it just so happens that there’s some fine cosmic chemical magic mixed in with the thick desert dust now. To sum up, I’m still sucking the rusty iron from my pearly whites and it tastes like fucking victory.

The Obelisk

III, Los Angeles rockers Sasquatch’s appropriately-titled third album for Small Stone, is like one of those girls. We all know those girls. You see them out and about whenever you’re brave enough to leave the house, and those girls know they’re super hot, and they know they’re way out of your and everyone else’s league, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Hit them with a bus and they’d still be hot. They know it, you know it. Even your girlfriend wants to have sex with these girls, and if she says otherwise, she’s lying.

III is like that, but with rock. And instead of being a total bitch, it’s all into Planet of the Apes and The Simpsons and stuff. Maybe I’m projecting.

In any case, what the trio does with this album is fuse the unmitigated fuzz stonerism of their first, self-titled album, with the classic feel of its 2006 follow-up, resulting in a brand of rock as much indebted to Grand Funk as Fu Manchu. III doesn’t even immediately strike as a stoner rock record, with opener “Get out of Here” (as in, “I gotta…”) based on a solid groove, but executed in a manner thoroughly modern despite any Southern rock influence. Highlight cuts “Pull Me Under,” “Burning Bridges” and the more boogieing “Walkin’ Shoes” follow likewise patterns, but somehow remain definitively stoner rock. The only answer is that Sasquatch are reshaping the genre to suit their needs.

“Pull Me Under” (thankfully not a Dream Theater cover) rocks slower than either the riffy and catchy “Complicated” or the chunkier, Helmet-style starts and stops of “Soul Shaker,” and with no shortage of character. Immediately following “Get out of Here,” “Took Me Away” centers around a bluesy riff executed with more than a little fuzz grown in. There’s more going on with III than fuzz and riffs though. Guitarist/vocalist Keith Gibbs is definitely at the center of the proceedings, but bassist Cas and drummer Rick Ferrante push the songs onto another level entirely, adding personality and well-placed flourishes to the material that prove both memorable and exciting to the ear.

If anything, I’d like to hear Gibbs take similar liberties with his material. Why not throw a quick squibbly lead line in between two verse riffs? It’s long since clear by the time the record’s back half opens with the acoustic-based Monster Magnetry of “New Disguise” that Sasquatch have a talent for arrangement waiting to be put to use, but there are moments of III that seem to be calling for a playfulness of which the band mostly steers clear. Fortunately, there’s enough rock to go around on a mid-paced groover like “Queen” that these are at best momentary distractions. And though I don’t want to tell Sasquatch how to run their band or anything, they could easily milk that guitar solo in “Queen” for another 17 minutes or so. Just saying.

“Leave it up to You” echoes the simple, catchy structure of “Complicated,” despite a somewhat slower pace and more laid back feel. Another killer solo from Gibbs plays out over running grooves from Cas, and it’s once again apparent that with Sasquatch it’s not just about any one player, but rather how well the three members of the band fit together as a unit and the yet-underappreciated excellence of their songwriting. Though “Bare My Soul” borders on hard psychedelia, “No More Time” once again grounds the album with a return to the faster rocking side of the band they showed on III’s first half. Like “Took Me Away,” the track is on the shorter side, but missing nothing and demonstrative that the presence shown throughout these songs doesn’t wane even when it could reasonably be expected to do so.

Aforementioned closer “Burning Bridges” marches III out on one of its most free-flowing, jammed-out moments, and as though it hadn’t been established already, once again the album proves worth the wait. I don’t know what held the band up between II and III, but these songs have the makings of classics in the genre, and are firm reminders of why Sasquatch are the great American hope for the next generation of stoner rock. I could continue to wax philosophical or fall into exaggerated hyperbole about how much ass this record and this band kick, but if you’ve made it this far into the review, you probably know that already. And if not, you’ll know it as soon as you listen to the album. 2010 just got its first highlight.

- H. P. Taskmaster

Buy From Us Buy From iTunes

1. Get Out Of Here
2. Took Me Away
3. Complicated
4. Pull Me Under
5. Soul Shaker
6. Walkin’ Shoes
7. New Disguise
8. Queen
9. Leave It Up To You
10. Bare My Soul
11. No More Time
12. Burning Bridges