Review: Bus “Never Decide” (RidingEasy Records)

While doom metal is something that has been growing on me greatly in the past year or so, Bus dropped something that would boost this even more. Never Decide is a record full of psychedelic vibes and traditional licks that greatly reflect the later Black Sabbath records that Ozzy Osbourne fronted. Although the vocal style is quite different, the nature of the riffs has such a thunderous boom to go along with the bouncy rhythms, which can be heard immediately in record opener “You Better Come In, You Better Calm Down.”

Older inspirations like this tend to draw numbers that may take a soothing approach to contrast the thick blasts of blistering doom. “Lucifer” slams the brakes on the tempos, and carries mopier ideas, giving it deeper levels of emotion and sadness. On the contrary, faster songs riding on rolling drum beats such as “Into The Night” deliver a lot of resonance with screeching guitar wails backing steady and monotonous rhythms. The purpose of this is to set the stage for what will become one of the heaviest tracks laced with a melodic punch.

The production on all of this is what makes everything stick so well. Even though Never Decide is a little lengthy, the echo in the production and slick layout of riffs makes it rather mesmerizing and relaxing, even during the harder moments. Almost all of the soloing takes the same approach in regards to this; therefor variation isn’t the main ingredient. Instead, the ability to feel the mood is what was meant to be achieved here.

Bus certainly possess a large talent for grasping retro ideas and making them work perfectly in the modern world. “Evil Eyes” is probably one of the best examples of where the old school vibes leak in. While today’s run-of-the-mill doom can get stale quickly, this act does exactly the opposite. Also, I absolutely adore the level of weirdness on that album cover.