Bongzilla

Bongzilla likes to smoke pot. The band also likes to pen songs about how much it likes to smoke pot. In fact, that's all Bongzilla writes about. That this monomaniacal lyrical approach hasn't gotten boring yet is a tribute to the power of Bongzilla's riffs, which are huge and crushing. In fact, the group's latest, Gateway, is the best thing it has released to date. It's almost equal to Electric Wizard's towering Dopethrone in terms of sonic power, though the Wizard's willingness to write about subjects other than weed puts it ahead. Still, this record offers plenty of skull-powdering drumbeats and the sound of combusting amplifiers. It's funny the first time, impressively noisy and sludgy the next few times, and boring only after five or six listens. If nothing else, that's better than the Kottonmouth Kings.