From the moment I heard The Bones of a Dying World, I was enamored. The way it infused post rock with prog, metal, and arena rock was absolutely spellbinding. It quickly became one of my favorite post rock albums of all time, and its allure has not faded since then.
Imagine my surprise then when I saw that among longtime fans of If These Trees Could Talk, that album was considered a disappointment, compared unfavorably to Red Forest, which seemed to be universally heralded as the superior album.
With a copy of Red Forest now firmly in hand (with a beautiful gold foil design on the jacket!), I can now firmly state that I still don’t understand why fans would be disappointed in its follow-up. But as for me, I am grateful to have another album as masterful as the record I’ve loved for so long.
As much as I love metal, I don’t usually mess around with technical death metal. By and large, I’m not totally interested in musical pissing contests to see how fast and brutal a band can play.
The phrase “style over substance” is often thrown out as a pejorative—especially in music critique. But to use that phrase as an insult misses just how much weight style can carry when done right.
The very first time I heard 
In the late 1980s, a young group of musicians in Palm Desert, California cut their teeth playing “generator parties.” Small crowds would gather in the desert with gasoline generators and copious amounts of beer and cannabis. And into these sparse, potsmoke filled wastelands, stonerrock pioneers Kyuss would play directly to the crowds, free of the politics of club owners and venue promoters.
