Space in Time

This EP opens with “Deep Hole on a Gold Throne,” which sounds a bit like Dio if Michael Schenker had been his guitarist and the fantasy-fiction imagery didn’t come off as melodramatic and adolescent. Inevitably this band and this release will invite the term “stoner rock,” but there’s nothing sludgy or absurdly exaggerated about any of these songs. For a hard-rock album, each track is refreshingly succinct without skimping on the right type of dramatics that made that kind of music fun in the first place. Sure, all the excesses you’ve come to expect from a heavy rock album are here — the tasty solos and menacing dynamics — but Space in Time manages to add them without boring us or embarrassing itself with its bombast.