The art of the great hard rock guitar riff seems to have gone the way of the buffalo. Most metal bands today seem content to simply throw together a simple detuned-to-death chord progression and pile on the volume and distortion. It makes you wonder why there are no more songs like “Crazy Train,” “Heartbreaker,” and “Smoke on the Water,” with guitar hooks that could be imitated by mouth and initiate air-guitar freakouts. (Think Beavis and Butthead.) But local boys Suplecs manage to keep that torch burning as if nu-metal never happened… well, almost. The band’s sound can best be described as the spirit of Lynyrd Skynyrd distilled through the melodies of Black Sabbath and the attack of bands like Down and Pantera. But what makes Powtin’ on the Outside… special is that they incorporate just enough of the lighter, more modern and melodic touches to not come off as rock dinosaurs. The best example is the ferocious “Gotta Pain,” which opens fast, then slows down to a heavy trudge, followed by a Jimmy Page-worthy guitar solo and sing-along fadeout that almost sounds like a Deftones song. The rest of the album continues in the same vein, and only lets up once. That’s during the beginning of the slow-crawling instrumental “Cities of the Dead,” with its ambient Eastern-influenced lead scales. But even that evolves (devolves?) into a thunderous metal monster within a few minutes. I highly recommend Powtin on the Outside… to any fan of old-fashioned, Southern-fried stoner metal. And the cartoon album art (including a burning Superdome and drunken “baghead” on the back cover) is a treat that will bring a grin of recognition to any local’s face.