By Alex Salisbury
Stoner rock is something often associated with the sweltering, barren deserts of the US of A rather than the frozen tundra of Iceland. Reykjavik’s Ottoman have other ideas about that though, showing that you don’t have to live somewhere hot to release dirty, stoner rock music.
After nearly five years of solid touring Iceland’s Ottoman finally managed to set aside some time to actually lay a few of their tracks down. ‘Burn The Witch’ is a groovy little number, nestling somewhere between the sound of Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘No One Knows’ and ZZ Top’s ‘La Grange’.
It opens with a big, fat, crunchy bassline, a wail of feedback beckons the punishing drums and the songs kickass guitar riff to enter the fray, before it all gets stripped back for the vocals. This track packs plenty of swaggery punch throughout and it takes it up a notch as the bassline rumbles on and the guitar solo kicks in towards the final third.
This is a fairly paint-by-numbers effort within the genre, but it’s a solid musical delve into an unexpected and undiscovered music scene.
Listen to ‘Burn The Witch’ here: