Happy Friday, rockers! Bokassa is a stoner punk band from Oslo, Norway. They recently put out a new album called All Out of Dreams that’s streaming on Bandcamp and also released a video for the song “Garden of Heathen” featuring Sick of It All’s Lou Koller that’s now streaming on YouTube.
What exactly is stoner punk, exactly? For Bokassa, it means blending the energy of melodic hardcore with stoner metal riffs to produce something for both your punk and metal sides. That fusion is on display from the beginning of All Out of Dreams from the opening track “The Ending Starts Today” which keeps up that punk rock energy with the rhythm section but grooves on some big doom metal riffs. Then the aforementioned “Garden of Heathen” with Koller from Sick of It All, which creates a gorgeous melodic hook to compliment the hardcore punk elements and the big metal riffs. “Straight Edgelord,” which is a hilarious name for a song, brings the metal riffs to the forefront but the vocals have more of a hardcore punk snarl to them, while the lyrics poke fun at flaws in the punk scene. Then the title track starts out on a synth-punk riff before the same riff switches from synths to guitars and it’s perfectly paired with a melodic hardcore hook in the chorus.
Having already pulled in one guest star from the hardcore punk world, the album then pulls in another from the stoner doom metal world with a guest appearance from Red Fang’s Aaron Beam on the track “Bradford Death Squadron” which favors the band’s metal side a little more than their punk side. “Let’s Storm the Capitol” is undeniably the best song title on the album and, as its serving up a stinging criticism of the MAGA movement, it delivers the most powerful melodies of the entire album. Then the brief, 46-second track “Everyone Fails In the End” starts out with a few moments of doom metal energy before hard shifting to straight-up hardcore punk for a fast burst of punk energy. “Gung Ho” gives us an almost classic rock vibe with some ’80s metal licks and jock rock muscle. “Crush (All Heretics)” ends the album on the longest track, giving us a taste of the band showing off the full extent of what their sludge doom side can do.
Of particular interest is the music video for “Garden of Heathen” which features intense, close-up images of the band playing the song while bathed in vivid colored lights in a darkened room, making for an eerie energy. Check out the video below.
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Photo courtesy of Troll Toftenes.
