Vista Chino is a new band from Los Angeles that plays hard rock in the same vein as their previous incarnation, thee legendary Kyuss. Kyuss existed from the late 1980’s and released some incredibly influential albums that I highly recommend checking out if you haven’t had the chance yet – they are “Blues For The Red Sun“, “Welcome To Sky Valley“, & “…And The Circus Leaves Town“. The sound these guys created with those albums shaped the sound of Stoner Rock throughout the 90’s until they disbanded, and can still be heard echoed through bands of today. When they called it quits, Josh Homme, one of their founding members/guitarist went on to form Queens Of The Stone Age, which became wildly popular throughout the turn of the Century and are still going strong.
The rest of the guys weren’t ready to call it quits so soon. John Garcia, Nick Oliveri & Brant Bjork, all formerly of Kyuss, decided they still wanted to play and create music together. This band was born from that. After a few years of touring and legal issues with their previous monikers, they decided on the name Vista Chino.
Their Debut release Peace clocks in around the 50 minute mark and features 10 songs from the band. This was the first single released by the band called,”Dargona Dragona”:
Fucking awesome right? Those riffs, the groove and the grittiness all sounds great. I listened to this single a lot in anticipation of the release of their full length. It’s my favorite track from Peace, but probably because it’s been burned into my brain from so many plays. It’s everything that I appreciated about Kyuss without the pop sensibilities of Queens. The record kicks off with an intro called “Good Morning Wasteland,” which is indicative of the gloomy direction of the album and John’s somber lyrical themes. Unlike the sunny, somewhat positive sounding albums that Kyuss put out, Peace sounds a lot colder, more composed and cleaner around the edges. Solid debut from a band that I definitely look forward to hearing more from.
Highlight tracks for me on this album are “Dargona Dragona,” “Planets 1&2” & “Dark and Lovely.”
You can reserve your copy of Peace by pre-ordering Here & if you’d like to catch them live – they will be touring in September and performing at Slims in San Francisco on September 12th.
