If Volume I era Sleep was signed to Am-Rep in the 90s and recorded Sleep’s Holy Mountain under Haze’s supervision, you’d probably have something like Connecticut’s Bedroom Rehab Corporation.  Simply a duo comprised of Adam Wujtewicz on bass and drummer Meghan Killimade, the band’s second studio slab Fortunate Some is full of hypnotic groove meditations that erupt like Pompeii hooked up to Vesuvius in magmatic explosions of city scorching sludge/doom.  They’ve got that Tibetan, esoteric groove in spades with drippy psychedelia turning suddenly violent at the drop of a hat.

Opener “Riddles of Wind and Time” is a temple built to the almighty riff, cycling distant grooves buried deep in the background for a simultaneously ambient and foreboding sound.  Adam’s vocals are mantra-like chants parked between sung and spoken as they float atop of Meghan’s flowing, traditional rock beats.  The music presents a distinct Jekyll and Hyde persona.  Whereas the song begins as a soothing, tranquil river of groove, it soon becomes a tempest of soul-drowning, tidal, percussive fills (heavy on the tautly tuned snares), demonic riffs that give Blue Cheer a run for their money in the LOUD department and screaming vocals aimed on splitting skulls wide open for the thrilling sight of brain matter.  It’s a familiar vibe done up with a decidedly unique and original flair.  Fuzz-blasted, lowdown and bluesier, the intricately lathed and thickly cut blues of “When all you’ve got is a Hammer” is a sonic bluster of delicious, doom-y riffing that practices restraint in terms of its quavering, hurdy gurdy vocals, stripped down bass licks and locked on beats.

This is 70s blues rock right down to the marrow of the lyrics involving “a long walk with stones in my shoes,” only that vintage sound is done up in a different package.  The volume swells are located in all of the right places with the vocals getting loud and husky like a cross-pollination of Jared Warren and Leslie West.  Even the music itself sounds like someone found the perfect stride between Head for the Shallow and Climbing!  Adam’s powerhouse vocals belt out some mean ass lyrical statements that really stuck in my craw with sentiments like, “All I’ve got is this hammer, everything looks like nails to me,” you know that this stuff is low to the terra firma.  The instrumental breaks work up a good level of Am-Rep twitch that will have your lips smacking with the taste of salt and your own blood.

“Giants in the Ice” begins with an austere drone of bass feedback and amp-scorch that quickly settles into a downtrodden, detuned lumberjack stomp.  The vocals stay strictly in a grumbling, fault-line cracking growl throughout with the riff/beat shakedown dropping a steady thunder that’s old school blues rock throughout.  Some of the higher-end melodies work in place of guitar leads, giving Killimade plenty of chances to pepper the groove with punchy trick beats outside of her usual pocket.  Some of the riff-y lurches are big bluesters that match anything Sleep’s ever unleashed on the public.  Closer “The Serpent the Smiler” is a mess of loops and pedal FX made lively by a rolling tom-tom heavy tribal pattern.  Here the duo sneaks back into those hymnal vocals and melody-centered psychedelia.  There’s a loose, jam room feel to this track with no set plan or pattern holding things down.  Earthless toys with similar formless ideas, although Bedroom Rehab Corporation punctuates their sentence with a ball-busting, bong-blasted Am-Rep riff and a punk-addled beat shift as the record comes to a close.

I didn’t know what to expect with Fortunate Some but I got way more than I bargained for.  Structure-wise, the album is an authentic nod to the biggest and ballsiest bands that the 70s had on offer, yet tonally they are something completely different…acerbic and coarse like sandpaper in the fine tradition of many noise-rock greats.  Anyone into heavy, old school rock n’ metal that is up for a band challenging the format as much as they adhere to it should absolutely check out Bedroom Rehab Corporation.  This is some badass shit!

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