Sweat Lodge

Choking on enough fuzz to carpet a split-level, Sweat Lodge pounds acid boogie like the early Seventies never ended. The type of riff-oriented heavy rock the Austin quintet wallows in doesn't require innovation so much as expertise, and Sweat Lodge executes it as well anybody flailing power chord licks on Gibsons through Orange amps. Educated at the same school as Scorpion Child, but having smoked more pot behind the bleachers, the Lodgers lay it down thick. Axe men Dustin Anderson and Javier Gardea slather the thumping "Black Horizon" and the burning "Phoenix Ascent" with the proper amount of cosmic sludge, while spaced-out front dude Cody Lee Johnston declaims from on high, really high. The band also discloses a bleary-eyed sense of humor. How else to mark tracks called "Boogie Bride" and "Tramplifier"? That and a fanatical dedication to stoner rock songcraft make Sweat Lodge more than just another Trans Am on the highway.