Band:	Methadone Skies
Album:	Retrofuture Caveman
Style:	Psychedelic rock, Atmospheric sludge metal, Stoner metal
Release date:	May 2021

01. Retrofuture Caveman
02. Infected By Friendship
03. The Enabler
04. Western Luv '67
05. When The Sleeper Awakens

If you've ever wondered what post-metal would sound like if it developed from stoner metal instead of sludge metal, Methadone Skies clearly share your fascination.

Despite my fondness for stoner metal, I only discovered Methadone Skies courtesy of Radu's review of their previous album, Different Layers Of Fear. I haven't really seen them mentioned anywhere apart from that review since, which may highlight the over-saturation of the genre that Radu mentioned in his review when you consider just how good that album is. Yes, it is at its base instrumental stoner metal, but they incorporated elements of post-rock/metal, doom, space rock and more into their approach, culminating in a rich, emotionally resonant take on the style. If the post- elements were evident on Different Layers Of Fear, they are glaring on Retrofuture Caveman.

Different Layers Of Fear ended on its longest song, so Methadone Skies decided to mix things up by placing the longest song on Retrofuture Caveman at the start. The 18-minute title track encapsulates everything that can be found on the album; the first few minutes are straight-up post-rock, from the delicate, uplifting clean guitar to the crescendocore build and sonic explosion, with nothing on the previous album flirting this heavily with post-rock. It's only around 4-5 minutes in that the song subtly transitions from post-rock into a melodic stoner/psychedelic rock jam, so subtly that it's hard to pinpoint the exact moment it happens, but listeners familiar with the band's previous album soon find themselves in slightly more familiar territory. The title track can basically be divided into four sections; after the post-rock and stoner jam, there's several minutes of ambience before it closes with a trudging stoner doom climax, glacial and crushing, in sharp contrast to the brightness and energy of the song's first few minutes.

"Retrofuture Caveman" covers a wide spectrum, but it doesn't really retain the pathos that the music on the band's previous record possessed; "Infected By Friendship" perhaps leans more in that direction, but at the same time, it really doubles down on the post-rock approach, gradually layering and developing for several minutes with dainty guitars and keyboards before bringing the distortion. This song is perhaps the closest I can remember a band getting to a post-/stoner fusion, replacing the crushing sludge riffs that form the basis of the climaxes in most post-metal bands with warmer, fuzzier stoner metal riffing. It's fascinating to see Methadone Skies go so heavily in this direction on the album's first two songs; after this point, post-rock shifts to the background, mainly acting as an augmenting feature rather than defining trait on the subsequent stoner-centric tracks, whether it be the tremolo near the end of "The Enabler" or aspects of the clean guitar on driving closer "When The Sleeper Awakens".

Although the final three songs find themselves more heavily rooted in stoner metal, it's not necessarily of the form found on Different Layers Of Fear; in contrast to the melancholic edge of much of that album's music, the likes of "The Enabler" and the opening half of "When The Sleeper Awakens" are of a more classic desert rock style. Of the three, "Western Luv '67" is perhaps the standout; the song is split in two, with an airy, psychedelic jam setting the stage for a second half that owes a surprising amount to Earth, particularly their The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull era. The Romanians' take on Earth's slow, psychedelic Americana is a curious one, not least due to their chord choices - there's a solid minute or two where the band sounds out of tune. I'm not sure what Methadone Skies were aiming for here, but it doesn't really work; it sounds way better when they play the same riff with more natural chords later on in the song.

Retrofuture Caveman is an ambitious effort from Methadone Skies, and one that impressed me quite a lot on first listen. However, whilst it's commendable to see a band pushing their boundaries in this manner, I do feel like the album is missing some of the gravitas that made Different Layers Of Fear such an impressive album for the genre. The band have managed to incorporate new ideas into their music, but some of the pathos and sense of importance that rendered the likes of "Manos" and "God Help Us All" so appealing seems to have been lost along the way, with the closing minutes of "When The Sleeper Awakens" about the closest the band come to replicating this. I really like the idea of fusing post-rock and stoner metal in the way that Methadone Skies have attempted on Retrofuture Caveman; if they could find a way to infuse their next attempt with a bit more emotional heft, they could be onto something quite special.