Don Gastro - "De Wasted"Don Gastro" [Self Released]

The product in question left us stunned. We expected a canonical debut that adhered to a common stoner/doom. And instead Don Gastro, despite only being on their first album, immediately hit the mark thanks to a very particular album, which has its feet well in the heaviest music that has ever existed, namely doom, but which also knows how to carve out extended moments and in which the band tries to incorporate all the influences they have into their DNA.

It is not difficult to find psychedelic or stoner elements in this album, as well as alternative, grunge and even indie elements. Don Gastro tries to merge all this into quite varied pieces in which sometimes you start in one way and end in another. This might leave many stoner/doom fans taken aback, but it could fascinate many other listeners who are simply looking for a hard rock record that doesn’t limit itself in any area. With this we don’t want to say that Don Gastro don’t belong to the dark swamps of stoner or doom, or even sludge: their guitars, the drums and the pulsating bass refer directly to those genres and the band is part of that trend, but starting from a very particular vocal approach and ending with a composition of the songs that is always in flux, the music of this band is sometimes difficult to catalogue.

An early career album that already shows a lot of character and that gives a glimpse of great developments for this band. We are sure that Don Gastro will be able to develop their sound even better and that singing in Italian could perhaps be a little tight in the future if the band aspires to export the music beyond Italy. We’ll see, we’re curious.