Stonedirt - Joygrind

(circa 2006)

Let me talk about how I first came upon this band. At first, I thought I had mistakenly put on a Pantera album but I had not. It was Stonedirt's Joygrind Demo. Thats all...

The fact is, this Demo is incredibly well produced and shows a band who, in the future, could become a major undergound act. And, due to the incredible amount of kids who seemingly worship Pantera, breaking through to a larger audience might not be so far fetched. One problem: they hail from Budapest. That's in like... Hungary or something right? So they may not be coming to the US anytime soon but that hasn't stopped them from creating a strong showing of their abilities on this album.

Vocals sound alot like Phil Anselmo though at times Endre Tarjányi does have a harsher sound venturing more into the screaming realm. Musicianship is quite good. One thing that these guys know how to do is groove it up.

The songs on the demo consist of Hard Hits By Life, SD (Respect Diamond), Smolder In Vain and Unknown Hand. Honestly, they all sounds similiar so lets just consider them one large song; Hard Hits In Vain By Life's Unknown Hand (Respect Diamond). Yeah. That sounds nice. The song is fairly mid-paced throughout. The one thing that I did enjoy was Szilárd Kamarás' bass playing. Perfectly on time, interesting and well placed fills adorn the track. This is especially noticed in the song Hard Hits In Vain By Life's Unknown Hand (Respect Diamond). Guitar-wise, this Demo is a riff-fest. Balázs Kemencei really seems to have put alot of effort into making memorable riffs. Like going to the state fair and instead of a hell of a lot of people in overalls... you have a hell of a lot of riffs... possibly in overalls. The leads are pretty decent where they appear. Drumming is also solid. Boldizsár Ifju certainly isnt breaking the boundaries of time and space or opening a third dimension by blasting into some ethereal realm however he keeps the beat and thats something that cant be said about a lot of drummers these days. My favorite part of this album is at the end of the song... about 2:16 through Unknown Hand. Pretty nifty little solo there.

There really isn't anything new here however for fans of Pantera, and Down and all that southern groovy metal, this is something that you may want to check out when you are feeling deprived of... all of your Pantera albums.