For more than thirty years now, Fu Manchu’s fuzz-fuelled riffs have been gracing the Palm Desert stoner scene.
And in this small town in Southern California, good times mean scorching temperatures, the kind that make the slightest movement a superhuman effort. A heaviness that is reflected in the sound of a fringe of local youth who, with the discovery of substances that allow them to travel without moving, have had the good idea of taking up music.

This combination of heatwave, drugs and fuzz guitars gave rise to Palm Desert stoner, from which came Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age and Fu Manchu. Led by Scott Hill, a former hardcore punk from the Californian coast, Fu Manchu arrived without warning in 1994 with the now classic No One Rides For Free. Thirty years and eleven albums later, they’re back with The Return of Tomorrow, their thirteenth opus conceived as a double album oscillating between the fat sound of fuzz guitars and more temperate compositions, revealing a little-known string in their sonic bow.

It’s an album which confirms that these fans of heavy metal have no intention of taking their foot off the accelerator, as evidenced by their appearance at Hellfest, where the Valley stage should be renamed ‘Valley of Death’.