Album Review: The Sword - Apocryphon

Grab some eye drops and a bag of Doritos, settle into your favourite easy chair and prepare to chill out, because Texan stoners The Sword are back with album number four. Still in orbit after their 2010 science fiction concept record Warp Riders, Apocryphon sees the band continue to search the outer galaxies for something that resembles the perfect mix of Hawkwind and Monster Magnet.

The good news here with Apocryphon is that the vintage hues of Warp Riders, which many decried for seeming transparently trendy in a retro-kitsch kind of way, are subdued on this new effort. Apart from a cover of ZZ Top's Cheap Sunglasses on the album's deluxe version, The Sword aren't so blatantly looking back, adoringly, to the mid-to-late '70s. Instead, they're forging ahead through cosmic realms, pioneering a sound that is uniquely their own. Sure, there are hints of all the usual stoner rock luminaries lurking throughout the album – a head nod to Kyuss here and a wink to The Atomic Bitchwax there – but Apocryphon has The Sword coming more into their own take on the genre. A lot of this self-assuredness can be attributed to new drummer Santiago “Jimmy” Vela III. He cements the band's back-end with a kind of bar-room boogie and tracks like Hawks And Serpents sound like biker rock under his impressive skin hammering. While Vela keeps things grooving, the rest of the band finds an interesting balance between clean, trippy space riffs on The Hidden Masters and the gritty rock of Seven Sisters.

Though Apocryphon isn't a genre classic like Kyuss' Welcome To Sky Valley and Monster Magnet's Dopes To Infinity, it's further proof that The Sword might have a quintessential album in them.