White Orange

Self-titled

Made In China Records 2011

Portland's own post-alternative, stoner rockers, White Orange, deliver a beautifully lush debut album.  A distinct "Ticking" sets the toes a'tappin' before those catchy, fleshy riffs crunch in as Where gets underway.  A hazy, yet meaty main riff matches the relaxed vocals approach taken here.  The song is like a perfect smash-up of Sabbath and Smashing Pumpkins' Today until the song bristles with distortion and intensity late in the track.  Monster main riffage accented by unsettling disharmony frames Color Me Black.  These guys mean business and are clenching fists, pushing their rage internally.  Middle of the Riddle uses a slow-burning, rolling riff and some psychedelic vocal lines to trip your mind out even further.  The drums explode and feed off the throbbing bass guitar as we are lead to the song's climax.  However Dinosaur Bones takes us on a sunny-day journey through billowy soundscapes, bright colors and fat soft riffs cascade slowly by like clouds on a warm afternoon.  A menacing tone overwhelms my favorite song on the album, the repetition-heavy Kill the Kids.  The aggressive, yet washed out vocals compliment the circular guitar pattern as the song swirls and pulses, brimming with dissonant solos and a bludgeoning main riff.  Delicate clean guitar solemnly twinkles before Save Me kicks in the door with its muscular riffs.  All the instruments twist and turn in a cacophonous dance.  The album closes on a truly, trippy note with the shimmering guitars of Sigourney Weaver.  The echoing, hazy vocals boost the hallucinogenic quality of the song.  Beefed-up, mammoth sludgy riffs and influences from stoner doom's heyday have been cross-pollinated with Monster Magnet style rock for White Orange's debut.  White Orange is a modern vision of what stoner doom-rock should be, was meant to be.