Record Review – Greenleaf

GREENLEAF  
Nest of Vipers  
Small Stone 

The riff! Isn’t that what rock is all about at the end of the day? You can have Jagger or Plant poncing round like big girlies centre stage but deep down it's Richards or Page who mare really moving the audience.  Hitting them deep in the gut with those primal few notes stitched together with the skill of a Bayeux artisan into the Corinthian structures of the songs we know and love. Your arms flail and the riptide eats into your fundament as you respond to the hyper-flagellation of the guitar god in front of you, controlling your flux an flow with a simple flick of his dissolute digits.

Greenleaf know this. They are slaves to the riff also – the fabled creation of which is toiled over in bedrooms and studios in every corner of the globe. To create that simple elixir of notes that they do on ‘Dream Catcher’ and ‘The Timeline’s History’ is the holy grail of musician-hood. Better still is the
Ozzy-era Sabbath trick they pull on the former track with the vocal mirroring the riff – a simple but effective way to crush all listeners’ brainbox.

My favourite release from Small Stone for a while. And by the way what else would you call a stoner supergroup other than Greenleaf? Serendipitous noise. Hail the
riff!

Austin Matthews