Houston's MR. PLOW is somewhat of an oddity. By day, they're regular Joes with respectable occupations (two lawyers, one teacher and a sound engineer for a radio station). By night, they play KYUSS worshipping stoner rock in a band named after a "Simpsons" episode - you know the one where Homer buys the snow plow? Well, at first glance it's not clear just how serious or not serious these guys are. Beyond the band name, they all have the last name "Plow" and on their website count their smoke machine as a member of the band. At the same time, "Asteroid 25399" is a concept album based on the work of renowned sci-fi author and artist Kurt Vonnegut, who also supplied the simplistic yet creepy cover art. So what exactly are these guys trying to say?

Eh, who cares?! What matters is that these songs are fucking solid. Employing more of a structured verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, these guys might actually be equal parts KYUSS and FU MANCHU, especially because of the tight and effective hooks. From the opening low C chord of "Malachi" to the fade out of "Telepathic Butterflies", this is nothing more and nothing less than what diehards of the genre have come to expect. Possibly the best chorus in stoner rock is in the song "Proteus": "You're so full of get-up-and-go / but you fill me up with… lie down and die!" Even without being familiar with the work of Vonnegut, one can tell that the lyrics have been skillfully adapted, giving the album a slightly cold, abstract feeling. Of course, one of these guys is a teacher, so the lyrics kind of have to be good. The best thing about this CD, though, has got to be the production. From the perfect fuzz on the guitar to the crispness of the drums and vocals, this sounds nothing like a self-released CD. Matter of fact, if someone who didn't know stoner rock was played both MR. PLOW and THE SWORD and was asked which one was on a major label, they'd guess wrong. I guess it helps to have a sound engineer in your band!

So regardless of how serious or not serious these guys are trying to be, the important thing is this: if anyone is looking for the most worthy successors to KYUSS, call MR. PLOW. That's their name. That name again is MR. PLOW.

- Cardona

OFFICIAL SITE: www.mrplow.com

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