From the German region Nordrhein-Westfalen comes Mojo Jazz Mob. This five-piece band plays some awesome old school Stoner Rock. Their EP called Westfalenwalze is a nice piece of work. It contains five impressive songs and they're catchy as well. This band has it all! There are great vocals, excellent guitar riffs and a pleasantly grooving bass and drums. Their sound does also behold a little pinch of Psychedelics, but for the most part it is more straight forward Hard Rocking Stoner. A very good EP! Enjoy!
Oh man, the Mojo Jazz Mob take me wayyyyyyy back to 2000 when I was writing as a staffer for what was then Ultimate Metal.com. I had taken the liberty of changing someone else’s website to cover mostly Stoner Rock and Doom and then got fired for it… something I didn’t understand at the time, but now can fully appreciate the owner’s disdain for my freelancein’ ways. Mojo Jazz Mob had sent me their 2000 demo, which featured the powerhouse tunes “A.R.E. you A.I.R.?” and “Plasma Junge”. That ended up being the last review I would write for that particular zine.
It’s amazing to see these guys still around 10 years later, and it looks like they’ve been busy too with quite a discography. Nice to see my initial words didn’t torpedo any otherwise promising career.
The MJM are a German-based five piece heavy rock band, whose roots heavily tap into the burgeoning Stoner Rock movement of the late 90’s and early ‘00’s. They still have the Stoner Rock influence… at least one or two references to marijuana and a remarkably powerful guitar sound that is akin to a wind turbine in a hurricane. The songs have evolved, however, into these magnificent stripped-down powerhouses of melody, hooks and catchy choruses while still retaining the experimental charm of early ‘00’s Euro Stoner Rock. Out of the five songs, there isn’t a loser riff in any of ‘em. My favorite, “Samba”, features a cool, stoney, percussion driven mid-section between the riffs of howling melody. The riff on opener “Rapid Cycler” could reckon it’s own fault zone, and the twin guitar harmony n’ riff that opens “Chemical Pilot” is a nice take on the Dickinson/Smith school of songwriting, as applied to Stoner Rock.
Westfalenwalze is sonic ear candy. It’s heavy, it’s catchy, it’s creative and damn good. The Mojo Jazz Mob have successfully made the transition from “just another German Stoner Rock band” to something with a broader base of appeal. Personally, this is a very nice change of pace to a set of ears used to hearing slowly churning, dire music of a doomed planet. It’s like putting on Rubber Soul after several uninterrupted listenings of Stream From The Heavens. Puts you in a nice place of finger-snappin’ and toe-tappin’ just when you need it.
(By Chris Barnes at HellrideMusic)
Mojo Jazz Mob - Westfalenwalze (2009)
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