by Alex HendersonIn the late 1990s, the San Francisco-based Man's Ruin label recorded its share of stoner rock, a style of heavy metal that tends to favor slow guitar riffs, spaced-out, neo-psychedelic grooves, and a willingness to jam and improvise. Stoner rock can draw on such classic influences as Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Hawkwind, and Blue Cheer, but it isn't necessarily oblivious to musical developments of the 1990s. On Temple Ball, Canadian stoner-rock band Sons of Otis combines a healthy appreciation of Hendrix's guitar playing with a variety of weird atmospherics and strange, bizarre vocals. While the guitar playing recalls Hendrix, the distorted vocals are far from his style -- in fact, the use of distorted vocals is a technique associated with industrial noise and alternative rock in the 1990s. Except for an inspired cover of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen," the tunes on Temple Ball aren't about directness or getting right to the point. Instead, Sons of Otis love to jam and improvise -- something they have in common with Blue Cheer, Cream, and Hendrix's Band of Gypsies. With one foot in the late 1990s and the other in the late 1960s/early 1970s, Temple Ball sounds at once fresh and familiar.