Oreyeon are an Italian stoner rock band and this is their third album.
Here we have 42 minutes of stoner rock crafted by a band that know the style well enough to want something extra from it. Oreyeon combine elements of doom, grunge, stoner, psychedelic, progressive, and heavy rock into their music, pushing themselves to produce a quality listen that doesn’t rely on tired tropes to make its impact felt.
The guitars have a nice weight to them, and largely avoid many of the stoner clichés. The band write riffs that hit hard, and these form the basis of the six tracks you’ll find on Equations for the Useless. Onto this base psychedelic and progressive structures are then built, which allow the band to go deeper into the dirt with the music when needed. At other times it’s the direct appeal of hard and stoner rock done right.
All of the above is further tempered by the clear grunge influence that the album has. Alice in Chains, specifically early Alice in Chains, kept coming to mind as I listened to Equations for the Useless, only filtered through stoner, progressive, and doom rock influences. I can also hear a bit of Temple of the Dog in places. The grunge influence is a strong part of Oreyeon’s sound, but it doesn’t blot out everything else, resulting in an intriguing balance between the various aspects of their music that makes for some very good songs.
Equations for the Useless is an enjoyable and charismatic album with much to offer fans of all kinds of rock and metal. The songs are satisfying and well-written, and the album flows nicely, in some ways becoming more immersive and progressive as it unfolds. If you are a fan of the style then I heartily recommend checking this out.
Wonderbox Metal 