Vim Fuego
From a distance, West Auckland's 8 Foot Sativa originally looked like just another two chord, downtuned clown-trousered nu-metal band. Ho hum, the great nu hope for Kiwi metal.
But if you get past any pre-conceptions and actually listen to the noisy buggers, you're in for a skull-crushing treat. Instead of the nu-metal stodge expected when you slip this disc into your player, you get a sonic boom of Judas Priest meets Dismember on steroids heavy metal! It's brutal. It's got riffs. It's got double kickdrums. It's got death/hardcore style vocals. It's just what New Zealand’s metal scene had needed for years.
There are just so many facets to this band, and they're all metal. The band is obviously influenced by many different shades of metal. One moment, they're old school metal. Witness some of the catchiest guitar noodling heard this side of Iron Maiden on "Fuel Set". The next, its nu-metal (of the early Machine Head variety) and funk on "Cocktease". Then it's off to Entombed's death ‘n’ roll theme park with "Believer". The opening riff of "Kick It All Away" brings to mind the long lost sound of Ripping Corpse. Then there's the hardcore/thrash stylings of single "8 Foot Sativa". Then to finish it all off, there's a quick pirouette through a JS Bach composition. Yep, there isn't much this band can't do.
Much of the lyrical content deals with the lifestyle of those who partake in the odd puff of electric stickyweed. The music doesn't ever get an attack of the munchies and end up light-headed in a hazy cloud, pointlessly searching for a non-existent Mars bar between the sofa cushions, as many THC fuelled bands have a tendency to do.
This is the album Pantera should have recorded instead of breaking up, Entombed could have recorded, and Slipknot was incapable of recording. 8 Foot Sativa became a leading light of the New Zealand metal scene, and deservedly so.