Tuna de Tierra - Tuna de Tierra (2017)
For their first full-length album,
emerging two years after their debut EP, the Italians of Tuna de
Tierra have put together a batch of seven new songs, and their warm
desert rock is even more enticing in long form. Strolling through
riffs in songs both short (like the tasty intro track “Slow Burn”)
and sprawling (the ten-minute-plus “Out of Time”), the band
projects an air of casual coolness that doesn't sweat even when
ripping into their most heated shredding.
Much of the music focuses on simply
building up solid riffs and melodies, fanning out measures of chill
noodling and mellow grooving, and in doing so, TdT make some of the
friendliest and most natural-sounding music I've heard in quite a
while. There's nods to the blues roots of early heavy metal, and to
the grunginess of '90s desert rock, but it's blended with their own
style in a way that brings out the best of each, and leads to some
very strong rocking that doesn't overplay its hand.
As welcoming as the music is, it holds
onto powerful writing throughout the album's run, always ready to
give it that shade of extra intensity that ramps things up to attack
mode. With these seven tracks, Tuna de Tierra amply demonstrate how
you don't have to lean on loud bass fuzz to be heavy as Hell.
~ Gabriel
For Fans Of; early Black Sabbath,
Desert Suns, Kyuss, Merlin, Mondo Drag
~
