Jesse Stilettö – Self Titled

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · Published March 27, 2025 · Updated March 29, 2025

Jesse Stilettö is a two-piece band located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play a mix of hard seventies rock, stoner, and heavy psychedelic rock. They just released their debut Self Titled album on March 14th 2025. The record contains seven tracks at around thirty five minutes long.

“As The Portal Opens” starts the album off with a surge of hard rocking bliss! Fuzzy and groove laden riffing is what Jesse Stilettö is delivering. They have stoner and grunge rhythms packed with psychedelic elements, enhanced with great sounding vocals. The song kicks into high gear from the beginning and then comes into an atmospheric backdrop of spacey components. The over six minute track explores a good spectrum of heavy sounds diverging from full throttle to idle, and back to rocking glory. The band has a nice catchy integrant in the song with the singing, also utilizing backing vocals. “The Plaid Man” begins with clean guitars and tribal percussion. The song captures a grunge style sound with a beautiful mix from light to heavy transitions, that incorporates more great vocals. The guitars are expressed through acoustic sounds and mammoth riffs laced with excellent leads. Again, there’s a catchy vibe happening in which the song sounds very assessable to a variety of fans of hard rock, grunge, and blues.

The third track “Devil’s Lunch” starts soft with wind sounds, Latin style maracas, and employing airy psychedelic segments into the mix. The song then launches into a rocket ride of glorious jubilant riffing and classic metal sounds. The heavy crunchy rhythms entangled with the guitar harmonies has an elegant seventies feel. They even break off in a moments notice to employ a quick psych phasing of guitars before cranking back into the main riff. There’s something very satisfying about the way Jesse Stilettö manages to captivate each song with memorable melodies that transfer into a heavy, yet authentic tone. The band has a high level degree in crafting catchy and hard driving rock music.

“Feed The Moon” is another grand song that clocks in over six minutes. The guitar harmonies are back with the clean melodies that exquisitely adjoins into the powerful fuzz rhythms. The overall sound quality to this recording is superb. The instruments are mixed well together with the drums reeling in a full and hefty tone throughout. “Spectre” is another energetic rocker! The punk fueled rhythms are met with an explosion of guitars and hard hitting drumming. Jesse Stilettö continues to deliver a high quality output on each and every song. There are no filler tracks on this release! The next song, “Stairway To The Stars” is also a banger! The band covers the Blue Öyster Cult tune and nails it! It has a crunchy groove with a blues rock enticement that draws you right in. The vocals are exceptional once again and fits in perfectly with the song.

The seventh and final track on the album is called “Dream Into The Future“. It starts with a dreamy and psychedelic flow with clean guitars, pounding drums, and mesmerizing vocals. It branches off into heavier distortion but holds onto the atmospheric essence throughout. They comprise some excellent drum fills on this one and extrapolate more fuzzed out grooves. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoy this album. The mystery of the duo which makes up Jesse Stilettö is somewhat of an enigma. What is certain about this band though is they have an affinity with creating some of the most dynamic and engaging songs that the hard rock universe has ever heard.