Mythical Beast: Scales

Mythical Beast are a stoner rock trio who were displaced from their New Orleans home by Hurricane Katrina. But even in moving to Kansas City, they didn’t bother to find a drummer. Instead, their debut album Scales is filled with songs that creep along with spacey guitars, throaty vocals, and background bass and synths, but with very little motion. It’s admirable that they’re trying something different, but substituting occasional tambourines, jingle bells, and the odd bass drum doesn’t make up for the lack of beat. This is the sort of thing that works for 2-3 songs, but not a whole album. Singer Corinne Sweeney has a powerful, bluesy voice that reminds me a bit of Grace Slick, and it’s good for this dark, early ’70s-influenced material. But her tendency to draw out her vowel sounds interminably does nothing to help the music’s overall feeling of motionless. Somewhere, bands are doing strong work that push the boundaries of stoner rock and old-school heavy metal, but Mythical Beast sounds more like a failed experiment than a bold new direction.