Vista Chino: Peace

A welcome return for some familiar faces

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Assuming the name Vista Chino doesn’t instantly ring a bell, there’s still every chance you’ll be familiar with the past of at least three-quarters of this California-based four-piece, with Messrs John Garcia, Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork being better known as alumni of Kyuss.

Denied use of their former monicker Kyuss Lives! by a lawsuit instigated by old comrades Josh Homme and Scott Reeder, Vista Chino’s songs retain the stain, drinking deep from the acid-infused waters that nourished fellow travellers Sabbath, Hawkind and Blue Cheer.

If anything, the luxuriantly filthy, immersive riffs that underpin Peace are a little too cosily familiar, with Belgian guitarist Bruno Fevery incautiously biting Homme’s trademark guitar tones; excellent though they are, the fervid Dargona Dragona and the hypnotical swirl of Adara are just a little too safe for their own good. And then you reach the album’s closing track, the gloriously sprawling, three-minute Acidize The Gambling Moose, and suddenly Vista Chino’s true potential blossoms, as they dip and weave and shimmer beyond the edge of the horizon.

More of this fearless extravagance and these grizzled lifers can start assembling their own devoted cult.

Paul Brannigan
Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.