Album Review: Green Lung - "Black Harvest"

 

The name here might be a bit of a giveaway but Green Lung are a stoner rock band with their eyes firmly set on the '70s. I think it's fair to say that these guys may just have a very well worn copy of Sabbath's Master of Reality and an Iron Butterfly best of in their record collection somewhere.

Now I know in the past we've firmly set our stall out against the NWOCR "keep rock music trad" dullards in this here 'zine on numerous occasions but while there's been plenty of pound shop Led Zep impersonators muddying these particular waters, the heavier Sabbath influenced end of the genre is a bit less heavily populated and to be fair, Green Lung do a decent job of putting a 21st century spin on the thing. The concrete heavy riffs and Ozzy influenced vocals over the usual lyrical subjects of doom, gloom and destruction (Reaper's Scythe, Graveyard Sun, Doomsayer, you know how it goes) might not be anything you’ve heard before but at least these guys clearly appreciate the importance of a decent hook and a sinister air of menace to draw the listener in. The trippy Ina Gadda Da Vida style organ on a lot of the tracks marks them out as a bit different than yer standard '70s copyists as well and is a good touch.

The only minus point with Black Harvest is that it does start to repeat itself a bit as the album goes on and the whole overwroughtness does tend to get a bit wearing on tracks like the bloated closer Born To A Dying World - a little bit more variety on the formula might not have hurt Green Lung too much but they're still a relatively young band and hopefully that's something they can pick up and improve on in future releases. And at least they're a band packing enough concrete heavy riffs and snarling aggression to avoid this becoming the unavoidable millstone that it does with the likes of Greta Van Fleet, Massive Wagons et al.

I fully appreciate that describing a band as one of the better '70s influenced rock bands I've heard of late is akin to declaring someone the winner of a Tallest Dwarf Contest but Green Lung at least have enough of a spirit of their own and the necessary power and punch to make them stand out in what's admittedly a very weak field. Any Sabbath or Blue Oyster Cult fans looking for a new band to try could do a lot worse than give them a listen, put it that way.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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