The Public’s weekly local music reviews and previews.

Album:  Autumnal Equinox by HUNS  Recommended if you like:   Torche, High on Fire, Mastodon

Released at the beginning of November, Autumnal Equinox by Buffalo stoner-rock band HUNS is clearly timely, but probably not what one would expect from such a cozy sounding title. Instead, the band has chosen to interpret that seasonal twilight time not as warm and inviting but as a time of mysterious change and transmission of dark energy. 

The first track on the wholly instrumental album is titled “Walpurgisnacht,” which translates from Dutch to mean “Witches’ Night.” It’s a powerful, chugging metal track that reflects rolls and smoulders as a crackling bonfire on Witches Night might too. The album progresses through epic stoner-metal build ups on “Blitzschlagen,” raucous, shifting rhythms on “Kopfjager,” and finishes with the atmospheric, downtempo “Wotan’s Lament.” The four-piece band, Brandon Schmitt, Jacob Whitefield, Frank DiMaria, and John Neiss, recorded the album at Rotten Metal Studios.