Upon sizing up "Never Enough" - the third full-length from Philadelphia power-trio THE COMPANY CORVETTE - I expected a whiff of nostalgia. When the tags "stoner" and "psychedelic" are bandied about, one can be forgiven for a certain expectation of yet another wallow in fuzzed-out bliss of 60s/70s revivalism. Imagine my happy surprise when instead, these seven tracks hearken more to the halcyon days of the late 80s and early 90s and the twisted stew of Punk, Classic Rock and noise that would eventually be dubbed "Grunge." Although that era of post-post-Punk took its share of cues (sonic and sartorial) from their heavy hippie forebears, the sound conjured by THE COMPANY CORVETTE embraces the aggro nihilism of proto-Grunge quite nicely; and is rather refreshing in the face of so much 70s obsessed stoner psych, sophomoric stoner death or molasses-paced stoner doom.

Right off the bat, let it be known that this band's sound will likely whip the genre-police into a frenzied chorus of "That's not metal!" Well, so what? It's fuzzy, blown-out, often pretty ugly (and ugly pretty, come to that) and rife for a session pullin' tubes with the hessians.

Having said all that, opener "Foot In Mouth" nearly puts the lie to my whole premise, with its doomy, SABBATH-esque bass-heavy riff and swirling, pedal-damaged guitars, but then in comes Ross with a snarly laconic drawl straight from the Mark Arm playbook - this vocal approach predominates their previous record, "The End Of The Summers". The liberal use of wah-wah also conjures up MUDHONEY, whose fingerprints - intentional or not - are all over this album. "Devilwitch" rides an undulating current of effect-laden bass (Electro-Harmonix BassBalls?) out of the lead track and straight into a much darker, more damaged place. Here Ross leaves behind his droning vocal for an impassioned, desperately soulful shriek, a mode he employs for much of the album. This song has a wild appeal with flavours of TAD and even BUTTHOLE SURFERS.

It's when the band locks in to this combination of Blues-based riffing, with forays into Funk and that edgy, unhinged vocal that this group are at their best. They keep it going with "Sick", a straightforward Bluesy banger with Alexei shooting off leads like second-rate bottle rockets: a few are duds, most work, and a couple surprise you. The MUDHONEY comparison returns with "Stomach" which carries a lot of the same off-putting, slow-burn appeal of "Sweet Young Thing (Ain't Sweet No More)".  The latter has a lot of patient, slow leads and more of that "fuck it" drawl - great tune. The pace picks back up with mid-tempo chugger "Burn Out" and more layers of splat and quack, with envelope filtering on the bass and wah on guitar and the singing hitting an energy level recalling 90s Blues-Punk greats ZEN GUERILLA.

"The Stuff" stands out as a favourite, for it packs an alarming variety into its 'just-over three minute' length. It begins as a garage-y rave-up a la THE FLUID, with Ross doing the soul-barker bit, throwing some leads at you, then slowing down to a menacing crawl as Alexei makes wah-wah banshees shriek you into submission. Closer "Pigeon" features Ross's most restrained, melodic vocal calling to mind the late 80s work of SCREEMING TREES. There are some on-point guitar leads, some musical bass-lines, but ultimately it doesn't really earn its eight-minute run time. I feel remiss that I haven't singled out Peter yet, but that's what you get for being a rock-solid pocket drummer; your work's calling card is its inconspicuousness.

It's not flashy, neither is it technically astounding. The songwriting breaks no virgin ground. Hell, I'll say it: it isn't even Metal, really. And who the hell cares? These seven songs have great variety of tone, emotion and pacing, and exhibit a solid trio whose whole is decidedly greater than the sum of its parts. And for what it's worth, old bangers like me don't mind a little of this nostalgic flavour from time to time.