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Founded in 1985 \u2013 with their debut LP, No One Rides for Free<\/em>, arriving about a decade later \u2013<\/em> Fu Manchu<\/a> <\/strong>are one of stoner rock’s most celebrated flagbearers.<\/p>\n Miraculously, they were able to keep their momentum and<\/em> quality going strong up until their last release, 2018’s Clone of the Universe<\/em>. For various reasons, it took until now for their full-length follow-up (the aptly titled The Return of Tomorrow<\/em>) to arrive. Thankfully, though, it finds the legendary quartet in top form, as they dish out plenty of engrossing sundried rockers (and even some softer pieces) to reaffirm their genre hegemony.<\/p>\n Still comprised of bassist Brad Davis<\/strong>, vocalist\/guitarist Scott Hill<\/strong>, guitarist Bob Balch<\/strong>, and drummer Scott Reeder<\/strong>, Fu Manchu<\/a><\/strong> <\/strong>pushed themselves to try something new on The Return of Tomorrow<\/em> by making it their first double album. As Hill<\/strong> previously explained<\/a>:<\/p>\n “When I listen to music, it’s either all heavy stuff with no mellow stuff mixed in or just softer stuff with no heavy stuff. I know a lot of bands like to mix it up and we have done that before, but I always tend to listen to all of one type of thing or the other. So, I figured we should do a double record with 7 heavy fuzzy songs on one record and the other record 6 mellow(er) songs, fully realizing that maybe I’m the only person that likes to listen to stuff that way. We kept both the records to around 25-30 minutes each as to make it a full-length release, but not have each record be too long. We don’t write a lot of mellow(er) stuff in Fu Manchu<\/strong>, but a lot of the riffs worked minus the fuzz.”<\/p>\n To his point, the split works incredibly well to give each side of the quartet’s artistry its own dedicated spotlight.<\/p>\n \n