This beautiful blue cover with the female figure (reminding me APOSTLE OF SOLITUDE's last year artwork in a way) hides the secrets of how stoner tries to be played today; with patrimonial KYUSS-esque drums and guitars, rhythm CLUTCH-esque bass and a reedy female voice that has the main role on STAKE OFF THE WITCH music character. Italians are neither famous for their skills and presence in stoner rock music nor have a relevant history on the past and that's why this release has an enormous interest for the fans of this kind. Also, it's true that so many women have inspired so many artists around the world; Medusa seems to do the same thing in our case. But how catchy and 'cheesy' could be a sound like this nowadays that we have almost listened to everything? Allow me to have all the right by my side.

This quartet has definitely great expectations and put a generous dose of talent in this second album, called "Medusa", innovating with the title written in Greek language. So far, so good, but unfortunately the content does not respond in my expectations too. I find Steph's vocals too weak in relation with the whole monolithic result, since guitars and bass actually are the leaders and leave no space for something else.. So, a girly, loud and screaming voice which refers to some alternative girl school band is the less that I want from a stoner rock record, unless it had more prog influences- forget it, it would not be my type anyway.

In "Medusa", we meet 6 compositions plus a double linear part of "On The Negation And Affirmation Of Medusa" that tries to be the opus of STAKE OFF THE WITCH. You will find nice ideas here and there between 45 minutes of the CD but, not the special one that will blow your ears out. If I had to choose the best among the 8 tracks of "Medusa", I would pick "No One Care About The Sun" that has all the standards of a dissent stoner song with an excellent introduction and a magnificent and simple structure. You can pass the rest of it without missing something extremely interesting.

I prefer to stack with albums like CLUTCH, UNIDA and FU MANCHU still release and not experiment with something immature for my taste. '7' for the effort and influences, '4' for the final result, so "Medusa" takes a generous '5' from me.