Ten East is an instrumental psychedelic rock/stoner rock/deser rock band from Los Angeles, California. They have released 3 full length albums through the years with the last one coming out this year. It is however their first album ''Extraterrestrial Highway'' that is perhaps the best among those releases in my opinion. The album offers a fine mixture of murky yet dreamy desert rock and psychedelic rock, while featuring the likes of Brant Bjork as well. Thus it is not a surprise the album tends to have a Kyuss vibe to a certain extent.
The album starts off with a track titled ''Heavy Light'' and it packs some fine meandering and dreamy desert rock motion in the vain of Kyuss's ''Catamaran'' for example, while also having a cruising stoner rock and a post-rock feel to it to a certain extent. ''Aqua Beared'' on the other hand moves more in the realm of higher tempo stoner while still having a psych rock feel to it. The third track ''Scraping The Barrel'' tends to be the heaviest among the first three tracks while still clearly possessing the meandering and aimlessley wandering aspect of desert rock. The same exact thing can be said about the fourth track ''Draggin Balls'' although this one tends to be even heavier than the previous one. ''Extraterrestrial Highway'' again packs some spaced and psyched out instrumental stoner rock, and perhaps is one of the best tracks on the album alongside ''Heavy Light'' and ''Scraping The Barrel''. '''Spiritual Hangover'' on the other hand offers some more tempo and a more clear cut stoner rock riff throughout, with the penultimate ''Progressive Guillitine'' being even more awesome with its slowly moving psych rock. The last track ''Expanding Darkness'' actually has the exact same vibe to it, and thus makes for a pretty awesome outro for the all-round fine desert rock album.
All in all ''Extraterrestrial Highway'' definitely ranks alongside the best instrumental desert rock albums in my opinion, with especially ''Progressive Guillitine'', ''Heavy Light'' and ''Expanding Darkness'' being the best pieces on the entire album. While saying this the album works best when being listened to as a whole, as a continous journey, because all the tracks tend to have a pretty similar vibe to them. Thus the album is definitely a must for anyone who digs desert rock and stoner rock.
Some related links:
Extraterrestrial Highway on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWE94oe_tWg
Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/artist/1842538-Ten-East
