The Black Code

Taking their name from the arch villain in TV's popular Hawaii Five-O series, Wo Fat have clearly had their tongues planted firmly in cheek from day one. But that doesn't stop their fourth album, 2012's ominously named The Black Code, from wanting to put you in the ground! While the band's previous LP, the interestingly named Noche del Chupacabra, laid down the psychedelics pretty thickly, The Black Code seems bent on simply melting your face off — at least based on first track "Lost Highway"'s devastating, stoner metal energy, which recalls such worthy predecessors as Orange Goblin, Red Giant, and the sadly doomed Unida. Hold your horses, though: Wo Fat won't be pigeonholed so easily. No, no. After the title track gets done alternating elephantine grooves and wah-wah pedal abuse over every speed in the gearbox, "Hurt at Gone" proceeds to hammer slithery slide guitars to Latin rhythms, "The Shard of Leng" flows from mystical Pink Floyd reveries into interstellar overdrive, and "Sleep of the Black Lotus" dives into endless, bong-fueled improvisations. Clearly, melting faces is not the sum total of Wo Fat's ambitions, after all, but the sheer aggression with which they tackle every one of these tunes, regardless of tempo or sonic ingredients, never lets the intensity waver. The Black Code roars with all the power that made '90s stoner rock so exciting and irresistible, and Wo Fat's growing confidence from album to album is living proof.