Dark Tooth Encounter - Soft Monsters

7.5 - USA - 2008

More instrumental stoner-rock from Yawning Man and Ten East mainspring, Gary Arce. Coming in rather short at seven tracks and just under forty minutes, Soft Monsters is nonetheless a fairly solid effort that consists largely of layered guitar textures by Arce and mechanical tribal drum patterns by Bill Stinson, with one or two guest appearances by such desert rock luminaries as Mario Lalli and Scott Reeder. For an instrumental guitar album, there's surprisingly little soloing; instead, Arce stacks various repetitive riffs and licks into echo-drenched mantras. Though it does sometimes verge on tedium, the whole record fits together so nicely and there are enough choice moments -- album closer "Engine Drone" is a definite highlight as is the backwards guitar on "Hyper Air" -- to make it thoroughly worthwhile listen.