Pink Fuzz – Resolution
Permanent Teeth Records / Self-released – 2025
Rock, Stoner, Desert
Rated: ***
I’ve been following everything Alain Johannes touches for quite a few years now and have had the absolute honor of meeting up with him a couple of times. And whenever another project he’s involved with comes by, I sit up straight and get my Alain ears on. It’s the kind of ears that always seem to open the heart, cause whatever Mr. Johannes touches, there is always this very honest and heartfelt quality to it all.
And that can once again be said by the stoner pop three that go by the name of Pink Fuzz! A Denver sister/brother led trio that sweats heavy stoner rock, marries this to a bit of shoegaze, garage and implores that Palm Desert vibe to make it all gleam with pop sensible sparkles. That’s Resolution for ya, the new Pink Fuzz album and it’s resolute in showering you with stoner rocking fun.
There’s this dust-kicked, late night energy running through the album. The long-awaited second full-sized album by siblings LuLu and John Demitro with Forrest Raup on drums. They seem to channel the kind of desert born chemistry that feels equal parts instinct and atmosphere and seems to constantly nod at a certain era in the desert. It’s a record that hums like the old tube amps under the Mojave stars.
Their first album in some seven years, and Resolution comfortably picks up where their Vitals EP left off. But the sound is wider, richer and a tad more sunbaked. The ghost of certain influences might be fleeting, but the shadow of Queens Of The Stone Age looms big over quite a few tracks and riffs. Yet, Pink Fuzz turns those influences inside out and folds them inwards with a bit of shoegaze shimmer, doom weight and fuzz drips.
The ten tracks offer loads of fun and even the most urgent ones never lose their looseness. Trigger, Long Gone and Coming For Me move with that low slung desert strut, confident, unhurried and heavy in all the right places. Am I Happy? might start as that lonely voce in the canyon but then erupts into a sun-flare of guitars. And No Sympathy and Worst Enemy both bring sharp melody and raw nerve into the mix.
Talking about the mix, this was done by Alain Johannes. Although we get the distinct impression he could not hold off on adding a few minor links and touches here and there. But we might be wrong about that. Even so, the album, produced by Kevin McKeown, captures a live-room warmth and ever snare hit, and fuzz pedal crackle feels tangible, like the band set up in the middle of nowhere and let the desert itself breathe through the mics. Like the old guard used to do. Like de Rancho De La Luna crew still does…
And that spirit seems present, even though it wasn’t recorded there, but in 5th Street Studios in Austin, Texas, the album still feels so rough-edged, soulful and gloriously human. The three sound unfiltered, alive and have managed to turn fuzz into feeling and melody into motion. A record that will put a smile on your face, and an extra kick on your gas pedal as you drive off into the endless horizon…
(Written by JK)
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