AMG Review of Deuce

Stewart Mason
All Music Guide

The rare stoner rock band that doesn't sound like a bad imitation of Zuma-era Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Black NASA distill their sound on their aptly-named second album. Finding a fruitful middle ground between the pop-smarts of Queens of the Stone Age or Foo Fighters and the boogie-fried jamming of the likes of Fu Manchu, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Chris Kosnik is at his best on songs like "Colony," which marries a catchy verse melody to some open-ended guitar freakouts, as opposed to more aimless, solo-based stomps like "Hut Nut," but the album's only real misstep is a pointless one-minute iteration of Run-D.M.C.'s "You Be Illin'" that closes the record, detracting from the hard rock intensity and shout-along chorus of the album's proper closer, "New World." A few more songs like that monster and Black NASA could catapult to the top of the stoner rock class.