Band:	BUS
Album:	Never Decide
Style:	Stoner metal
Release date:	February 2019

01. You Better Come In You Better Come Down
02. The Hunt
03. I Buried Paul
04. Into The Night
05. Lucifer
06. Moonchild
07. Evil Eyes
08. This King

BUS ( Better Under Substances?) Is a stoner outfit hailing from Athens, Greece who opted for cover art featuring giant chickens going all Godzilla over some small town America. Being stoner doom/rock from Athens, I poured myself a glass of aguardiente, Colombia's ouzo approximation, and attempted to achieve the mental state of everyone's favorite bus driver, Otto Mann, before delving in.

Never Decide is a rollicking, fuzzed-out and riffed up stoner rock meets doom affair, with a good dose of the 70s. Not the same kind you've heard in numerous other acts as of late, but going a bit further back to the late 60's early 70s.

BUS, ushers you in with "You Better Come In You Better Come Down", one of the most rockingist tracks on the album and therefore a great way to get you in the door. So now you're blazed up and likely haven't settled down.

As the next couple tracks unfold you're exposed to the breadth of what BUS are capable of. They aren't a one-trick pony punching out eight rocking stoner tracks that lose impact as the album goes on? instead while everything is strung together with the hemp thread of stoner.

"The Hunt" sees the band downshift and apply the brakes and doom out, whereas "I Buried Paul" see's the band invoke the sinister-sounding bastard offspring of The Doors' "L'america" and Pink Floyd's "Corporal Clegg". It's got that march-like feel of one kicking off to off-kilter bridge. From their more "Sinister Floyd" ensues as "Into The Night" starts off like some malevolent reinterpretation of "One Of These Days" before slowly morphing into a slow-bang metal track.

That's what ultimately elevates the album. They are capable of executing multiple stylistic shifts within the overall vibe. It's an interesting and engrossing listen. The second half the album isn't quite as exploratory, but each song shifts in sound and approach.

The guitar work is great, I love the riffs, the soli and just the tone itself. The vaguely Ozzy-like vocals (complete with an "Oh Yeah!" in the opening volley of "Evil Eyes" work for the album, but if not your cup of Greek mountain tea, no worries as they aren't horribly upfront in the mix.

So we're closing in in the halfway point of the year, checked out a lot of albums, many of them rather good, but Never Decide by BUS is currently parked on the top of 2019's Metal Mount Springfield, with Otto and I trading slugs of aguardiente.

Get yourself to bandcamp and get hit by the BUS