Typically, a self-titled release—or ‘eponym’ if your have a literature degree—is reserved for debut albums. But not always. In fact, there are enough exceptions that now I’m wondering why I started this review from this angle. DESERT SMOKE, the Stoner Psych band from Lisbon, Portugal, released their third album—self-titled if you haven’t guessed by now—on March 28, 2025 via Raging Planet Records. 

DESERT SMOKE is an instrumental band. I should get that out of the way right off the top. So, neither clean nor guttural vocals but rather sans vocals. Also, I’ve seen multiple sites using an apostrophe in the band’s name—e.g., DESERT’SMOKE—even the band’s various online sites use it intermittently, though their album covers do not. Another burning debate. Will the controversies ever end with this band? What isn’t up for debate, though, is the quality of the band’s music. We’re talking highly immersive, explorative, and just plain trippy. Everything you want from a Stoner Psych band.

Without lyrics, it’s hard to pin down a unifying theme for the album. The cover art (by Catarina Félix Machado) suggests a Thomas Ligotti nightmare but none of the tracks exude much on the evil aberration side. Instead, titles range from Basque culinary arts (“Fuzzy Txitxu”) to physics (“Gravity Absence”) to amusing paradoxes (“Blind Watcher”) to enigmas (“49th Steam Box”).

“Fuzzy Txitxu” starts off in the meditative range but quicky shifts to heavy rocking. Easily my favorite track on the album. “Gravity Absence” in contrast starts off as a bluesy soft number which definitely lives into its title but then begins to pick up tempo and grit at the mid-point mark until it finally crescendos at a point where I would have preferred it to begin—but then again, the journey was interesting, so maybe not.

The third track, “Blind Watcher,” also starts off on the mellow end and then at mid-track ratchets up. Definitely a pattern emerging here until . . .  at the ¾ mark we shift back to mellow. So, a bit of a mushy sandwich effect going on here. While “Gravity Absence” held my interest due to its contrast with the heavy hitting first track, “Blind Watcher” just bored me—even with the meaty bit in the middle.

And with that track record (no pun intended), a lot weighs on the final track, “49th Steam Box.” Verdict? Savior track, this one. Loops back around to the bad part of town where the nasty riffs hang out. And the best part is right when you anticipate the band is going to hit the brakes and head to the safer more gentrified side of town, they instead bury the accelerator and rocket straight to the brutal dark alleys. Love this one.

To sum up, tracks one and four serve as nice blunt bookends—heavy and hard-hitting—while tracks two and three serve as the maudlin middle. Metalheads will prefer the former and prog jam folks, the latter. To be objective, though, some solid songwriting all the way around and the musicianship is top bar. Production is also excellent. DESERT SMOKE, Desert Smoke, with or without the apostrophe, scores high on the Metal Temple scales. Well worth the time to check out.