About
Along with San Jose, California's Sleep, Kyuss set down the blueprint for
stoner rock, with a groovier, more alternative rock-influenced take on
Sabbath than their classically-obsessed brethren to the north. Formed in
Palm Desert, California in 1990 by guitarist Josh Homme, bassist Nick
Oliveri, drummer Brant Bjork and singer John Garcia, the band quickly gained
a following on the strength of their raging live performances and second
record, Blues For The Red Sun, which was produced by Chris Goss of
Masters Of Reality. Kyuss' magnum opus, Welcome To Sky Valley
followed, a record in which they took their once somewhat tightly structured
groove-rock songs and smashed them together into extended, multipart,
super-heavy psyche-metal jams. The guitar sound itself on the first three
minutes of that record sums up late '90s stoner rock -- a warm blanket of
distortion with unheard of amounts, yet precisely controlled fuzz with a
slightly muffled feel. Personal differences beset the band early on and by
the release of And The Circus leaves Town in 1995, Kyuss had called
it quits for good. Homme went on to form Queens Of The Stone Age with
Oliveri.
- Mike McGuirk
