When a great stoner-rock song hits, it hits hard. It lands full force in the centre of the chest, ensuring that listeners feel every vibration created by the slow-motion barrage of distortion-laden riffs, growling bass guitars and the kind of low-end rumble more typically emitted by one of the muscle cars so often pictured on the genre’s album covers. Along with the leather-lunged howl of vocalists such as Kyuss frontman John Garcia, these were the fundamental elements of the style that emerged in the early ‘90s as bands like Monster Magnet and Sleep furthered the dark arts pioneered by Black Sabbath, Pentagram and Blue Cheer in the ’70s. The result is a bruising combination of psychedelia, metal and grunge that somehow maintains a compelling groove and a fiery intensity no matter how slow and low it all goes.