Stoner
Ripple Music
Release Date – August 8th 2025
Line Up:
Steve – Vocals/Guitar
Tim – Bass
Mario – Drums
Tracklist:
Vegas, Baby
Succubus
Lord Of Suffering
Vale Of Tears
Machine Is The Master (Human Is The Slave)
Freakshow
Broken Man
I have said this before – I consider myself extremely lucky to be doing this reviewing thing and I’m feeling extra lucky this month. I was first introduced to Borracho – which means drunk in Spanish – from their second album the absolutely perfect ‘Oculus’ 2013. Since then, they have experimented with bits of prog and psych but here they come back with another perfect example of heavy stoner rock.
Kicking off with the massive ‘Vegas, Baby’ the groove laid down by Tim and Mario allows Steve to dual guitar with himself, not easily done considering they’re a trio! The even bigger and psychy ‘Succubus’ gets darker as it builds from the intro into a chugging beast with a sneery malevolent vocal from both Steve and Tim that sends chills up your spine. Some of the passages on this are incredible as they incorporate some synths to great effect. Mario gets tribal on the intro to ‘Lord Of Suffering’ as Tim joins him and Steve slashes his strings before he gets going on the same riff before he lets rip on the vocal. It’s spidery, grooves like a bastard and just get the chops in between you will be playing your air guitar make no mistake. The instrumental ‘Vale Of Tears’ comes on like Sabbath’s ‘Hand Of Doom’ with a gentle start before the doomy riff takes over and Steve lays down a wonderful solo before they go straight into ‘Machine Is The Master’ – talk about dystopian! Jeez there’s some awesome guitar and bass runs on this that leads to another blinding solo from Steve. Hold on there’s more with the rockin’ ‘Freakshow’ where Steve acts as the ringmaster calling us to attend over another simple riff then explains all the acts in the show. Is he talking about humanity? I think so. Last but definitely not least we get ‘Broken Man’ which is built on another simple riff but we get an organ solo in the middle before Steve gives us some more fretboard fireworks.
I genuinely cannot put into words just how good this album is. World class stoner metal played by exceptional musicians. It’s not polished by any means but that’s the beauty of stoner. The guitar and bass are down tuned and distorted making the riffs monumentally heavy and by crikey do they know how to lay down a groove. Exceptional. Awesome. Brilliant and loads of other adjectives come to mind. Just perfect.
Written by: Smudge
Ratings: 10/10
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