Brant Bjork by Brant Bjork: a bass-heavy, fuzz-caked meditation

Desert rock elder statesman Brant Bjork returns with one-man band and self-titled album

By Johnny Sharp
published
Brant Bjork: Brant Bjork
(Image: © Heavy Psych Sounds)

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Sure, he was only the drummer with stoner rock legends Kyuss, but since those pioneering days Brant Bjork has diversified impressively, and this solo album is, believe it or not, his thirteenth studio LP. 

As the self-titling might suggest, in many ways he’s gone back to self-performed, self-produced basics. 

Those familiar bass-heavy, fuzz-caked riffs are present and correct throughout, and when they create the languid, prowling groove of Jungle In The Sound it’s comfort food for the ears, and the infectious repetitive riff of Cleaning Out The Ashtray also digs under your skin. 

While a couple of other similarly simple four-chord affairs tumble the other side of the hypnotic/ monotonous tightrope, Stardust & Diamond Eyes offers something more adventurous with its nimble funk-rock guitar figure and an insidious shuffling beat, but over six and a half minutes it winds down into a brooding stoner meditation. 

Desert prog anyone?

Johnny Sharp
Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.