Cuda - Hellfire (2001)

   Somehow the really intense productions were always missing amongst stone bands, or if some bands tried that way, soon they slowed down and preferred to stay in psychedelic trance for a long time. Or they just disappeared fast after like Cuda did unfortunately.
   Anyway the band was interesting because of the intense swing of their music that stepped through the borders of ordinary stoner rock. By that and their heavy sound they were closer to metal, but still on the old school path of '70s hard rock influences instead of doom or sludge, as it would be more common in this style. Even though "Hellfire" is only and EP, the way how they spiced up it's extended song lenghts with groovy party compatible themes, could create the illusion of a full-lenght album. There are some occasional slow downs of course, but these just seem like to serve as prologue or epilogue parts of the heavy rockin' on. Cuda sounded like if they strained off the most intense momenst of old stoner rock classics to mix them into a whole in their own music. But the main feeling of "Hellfire" reminds to "Wretch" by Kyuss.  By the way Cuda was a short lived side project of some members of the infamous Bongzilla.