PEGZILLA open their debut album, Disobedience, without saying a word. “Pay the Toll” lasts barely a minute: a clean guitar slowly fills with fuzz until it ends up buried beneath a wall of doom. That’s all the warning you get. First the spell, then the hammer.
For all the doom that creeps in, and the “witchy doom” tag this Los Angeles trio wear, what really drives the record is the mix of hard rock, stoner and psychedelia running through its eight tracks. The riffs are huge, but they groove. There’s desert dust, amps pushed to the limit and plenty of Sabbath DNA, yet the band never sound obsessed with recreating the past. “Troll on Speed” has a dry, mechanical pulse that nods towards Queens of the Stone Age, while “Chelsea” pairs muscular Sabbath riffs with the tighter punch of modern stoner rock.
Disobedience works best when it plays with tension. “Pistola” starts sensual and menacing, almost narcotic, before turning far more aggressive, and “Virginia Werewolf” lets the guitar off the leash without losing momentum. PEGZILLA can sound heavy without getting stuck to the floor, and fast without losing density. “Bootlicker”, with its sudden stops, boogie and a dirtier edge that almost slips into sludge, makes that especially clear.
The lyrics hit just as hard. Singer and guitarist Olivia Saperstein keeps coming back to exclusion, abuse, consent and power. On “Troll on Speed”, being told you don’t belong becomes fuel. Elsewhere, women stop being victims and become the ones who watch, hunt and punish. “Chelsea” turns that into a revenge fantasy that feels almost like a witch’s tale, while “Pistola” mixes sex, threat and stalking with a calm that is more unsettling than any scream.
The targets get bigger, too. “Bootlicker” goes after obedience and the people who end up defending the power that crushes them. “Virginia Werewolf” asks what happens when someone you admired no longer lives up to the art you loved.
By the time instrumental “Hell Ya Brother” lets the guitar take over, Disobedience has already made its point. Stoner, ’70s rock and heavy psych spill into “Troll Reprise”, a final blast of riff and fuzz.
PEGZILLA are not going to rewrite stoner rock with Disobedience, but they play it with enough hunger and venom that they don’t need to. They sound like a band who were told that door wasn’t for them and walked through it anyway.
Dive into Disobedience in full here.
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