Mathras - El poder de la mentira (2024)

Country: Argentina
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 9 Sep 2024
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | YouTube

This is the fourth album from Mathras, but they have a new vocalist since my review of their third, Sociedades secretas, back in 2019, so they sound a little different. He's Charly Coria and he's even more traditional than his predecessor, Ariel Varas, given the old school high screams he hurls out on a few songs here. Otherwise, it's relatively true to the style of its predecessor, with a few notes needed to explain the exceptions.

One of those is because the opening title track simply barrels along in a furious but controlled way that reminds, at full tilt, of Metallica's Fuel. It does calm down a little for verses but then shifts up to full gear in between. Coria can hit some notes and seems like a good fit already, but I was more focused on the tone and tempo, both courtesy of bassist Fernando Barreiro and drummer Sergio Marti. There's a palpable Metal Church feel here, a richness to the tone that screams melody and power combined. That rolls into La casa del dolor too, even though that doesn't approach similar speeds, and onward. It's a good feel.

There are ten tracks on offer this time for three quarters of an hour of running time and none of them approaches the title track for speed, even though Nuestra gran ciudad is fast and perky and the closer, Bajo las cenizas de un imperio opens like a playful thrash song, Barreiro's bass leading the way. Neither quite find the same high gear because this is always heavy metal not thrash, even at its fastest. At the other end of the spectrum, it plays with doom, often on the same tracks, such as the intro to Nuestra gran ciudad, but also at points on La casa del dolor and especially Lo que el tiempo dejo.

And so most of this sits in between those two extremes. As with their prior album, it often reminds of the traditional metal of the eighties, whether British or American, albeit with that beefier back end and obviously modern production. There's NWOBHM all over this like a rash, especially in the vocals and the guitarwork of Gustavo Ruben, who's reliable delivering simple riffs like the opening of Buenos tiempos or showing off on songs like Almas en la oscuridad and Nuestra gran ciudad. He gets a showcase piece here too in La creación (MLR), which sounds like another elegant intro until we realise it's an instrumental. He channels some Joe Satriani here.

It's telling that, even when he's being flash, he never touches on Eddie Van Halen, who was such a pivotal influence on the genre in the eighties. I'm presuming that's because Mathras don't have much interest in mainstream American metal of that era, focusing instead on traditional British metal like Black Sabbath and where NWOBHM took that, in the form of Raven or Diamond Head, along with more traditional American metal bands of the era, like Cirith Ungol or Manilla Road, and early doom pioneers like Pentagram. There's no partying going on, even on perkier songs. It proudly wears the genre's working class roots instead.

When they touch on mainstream metal, it's people like Ozzy Osbourne, like the beginning of the intro to Lo que el tiempo dejo. It's vocalisation over keyboards in the style of early solo Ozzy, then Ruben introduces some elegant guitar and everything grows into proto-doom, without ever quite leaving Ozzy—and no, I'm not just honing on the laughter halfway. This is the longest song here at a nudge past seven minutes, because nothing else makes it to five. That gives it the opportunity to play slower and heavier and that's a good sound for them. Less doomy songs simply feel the need to be done sooner, usually in four minute in change.

This isn't an album to knock your socks off, but it's a solid slab of traditional heavy metal. I like it a lot and, while the thrash fan in me is always going to gravitate to the barrelling along of El poder de la mentira, the doom fan in me appreciates the slower stuff too. It's hard to pick out favourite tracks, though I'd have to include the title track in that number, because it's easier to call out the moments that work best. The songs are consistent, without any of them letting the side down.

I like the NWOBHM touches on Liberacion and Almas en la oscuridad, along with the vocal reach on the former. There's a tasty riff on Buenos tiempos and a tasty solo that's all the better for Ruben not making it remotely flash. The perkiness of Nuestra gran ciudad works particularly well, even after a doomy intro and before fancy soloing. It has a neat ending too, just as Bajo las cenizas de un imperio has a neat beginning. There are a lot of moments here, which means that the entire album works very well as an easily repeated forty-five minute slab of music rather than a handful of standouts that would make a Greatest Hits album and a bunch of filler. That's old school too.

Spell Garden - Witches Coven Vol. 2 (2024)

Country: Brazil/Argentina
Style: Doom Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 30 Aug 2024
Sites: Instagram | Metal Archives

It's only been twenty months since I reviewed Spell Garden's self-titled second album, but here's a fourth, neatly highlighting in the process how I missed the third, The Sage, which was released last June. This is presumably a sequel to the first, Witches Coven, from as long ago as October 2022, so meaning that this a fourth album in only two years. Spell Garden have been busy! Actually, they've been really busy because they've been finessing their line-up too.

Nicolás Díaz still provides clean vocals, but Juan Topini has taken over from drummer Allan Caique on harsh, often guttural vocals. Raphael Santos is still there on guitar, but Hugo Villela has joined him to bulk up that sound. Ivan Clemente has come in on bass, which Santos provided on previous recordings, as double duty on top of his guitar. And Caique is gone, replaced by George Gomes. So now the trio that recorded the first two albums (and very likely the third as well, but I can't track down credits) has doubled in size.

The resulting sound is seriously beefy, now that I'm listening to a download (YouTube simply fails to do this justice). The bass is very low and the rhythm guitar right down there with it. While the intro, Children of the Earth, opens up with instrumental psychedelic doom, Demiurgo shows us a go forward direction, starting out with that downtuned doom but drifting into death, like playful drums on the intro had hinted. Topini's vocals are the most overt death element but the tempo is often much faster than we usually expect for doom.

Betrayal highlights how Spell Garden aren't just going to play fast all the time. There are plenty of slower sections here, even if it isn't all that way, and this one adds a churning section with a tolling bell and a choral backdrop just to emphasise how this won't ever leave Black Sabbath behind, even at pace. I tend to like the slower sections more than the faster ones, but I especially like how they shift from one to the other. It's also worth mentioning that the fast paced sections still sound very much like doom rather than death, even when Topini gets extra guttural. He turns that approach up on Salem and goes all the way on Leviathan, which makes the song much sludgier than it would be otherwise. Make Me Burn is sludgy too, without needing the vocals to take it there.

My favourite song this time is easily Carrying Hate, mostly because of a glorious riff that could be transplanted into a prog metal song or even a thrash metal track, all laid over a flurrying base of death metal. The harsh vocals are there, leading the way, but there are plenty of clean vocals on this one too, almost adding a punky aspect. That ought to clash with the guitar theme, with what isn't far away from a middle eastern melody, but it works wonderfully for me. The only negative I have with this song is the way it ends, as if it wasn't quite meant to.

In fact, that's the most obvious negative for me across the album, because it's not uncommon. I'd suggest it starts with Demiurgo, the first song proper, and never quite goes away, Make Me Burn another obvious example. They aren't the most imaginative band in the world at the other end of songs, but the intros work when they show up, like on Betrayal, and the songs that go straight into riffage, like Leviathan, work even better.

That's because the most obvious positive for me is the same as on their self-titled album, namely how effortless some of these riffs seem. Leviathan is easily the slowest song on offer and it has a relatively simple riff, but it's a very effective one that's impeccably heavy. That Spell Garden can shift from the achingly slow riff and overdone guttural vocals on Leviathan to the vibrant pace of Relentless with more traditional clean vocals highlights admirable versatility. Of course, both of these tracks are appropriately named.

And that's before I mention that the vocals on The Fall start out female and clean, surely courtesy of a guest I'm not aware of, who then contrasts neatly with the harsh male vocals of Topini. Or the final track, Sol de Agartha, which is notably more psychedelic than anything else here. I called out how their self-titled album shifted from doom metal into stoner rock on occasion and that doesn't happen anywhere as much here, other than on this closer, which is very tasty, even adding a violin and a flute for good measure. There's a lot here over almost fifty minutes, even before the bonus live tracks.

For my part, I prefer the slower doom to the pacier death, but I like both approaches. Relentless is my favourite track here after Carrying Hate and that's one of the liveliest songs here. I'm also very fond of the psychedelic rock approach of Sol de Agartha, so that's three styles right there. I'm also more fond of clean vocals on tracks like Relentless and Witches Coven than harsh vocals on earlier songs, but I don't dislike Topini's death growl at all. The more guttural he gets, the less I like it, even if the extreme version of that on Leviathan fits the heaviest riffing here.

But hey, that's what this album is likely to be for listeners. There's so much here that there's likely to be songs that any extreme metal fan likes a lot but others that they don't so much. I've pointed out mine. Yours might be different and that's fine. I wonder how that will help bulk up the fanbase for a clearly prolific and hardworking band still searching for the boundaries of their sound.

Thanks to Raphael Santos for sending this album over to me. Tudo de bom!

Neon Rider - Destination Unknown (2024)

Country: Argentina
Style: Melodic/Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 22 Mar 2024
Sites: Facebook

Neon Rider was founded by a couple of guitarists and that's apparent from the title track, which is the intro that opens up the album, a sub-minute long piece told entirely on guitar. We can feel the eagerness in that intro and also as the first track proper, named for the band, kicks in. Sure, Bruno Sangari delivers a strong clean vocal and guitarists Hernan Cattaneo and Marcos Nieva Green add precisely the riffs the song requires, but it's the eagerness that drives it all and I couldn't wait for the solos, because it feels like the performers can't wait for them too. It's a moment of release, as if the musicians have been restrained for a while and can finally just let rip.

Much of the joy here is in that release, because the constant battle in the majority of these songs is between the urge to go wild and jam for an hour and the need to exercise restraint to flesh out this music with verses and choruses and hooks and all that nitty gritty stuff that makes songs. On every song there's restraint but we can feel the energy gradually building until the moment they can simply let loose, mostly through another guitar solo. I can't remember the last studio album I've heard that feels as joyously alive as this one does, especially during its first half. That sort of energy is usually reserved for live albums.

The style is hard rock but with strong roots in melodic rock. Neon Rider and Feel the Magic adopt the latter a bit more than Unleash Your Fire and I Lay My Life in Rock and Roll, because the album builds throughout its first half. Those are the first four tracks and each of them is a touch heavier than the one before it, albeit never losing focus on the melodic rock at the core of them all, even though Cattaneo and Green like to bulk it up with the guitars.

While this is hard rock that will play very well to melodic rock fans, I'm not shocked in the slightest to discover that both Cattaneo and Green also play in a power metal band called Amma, while the former is also in a second power metal band, Edenlord. There's a distinctively metal approach to what they do and, at their heaviest, the result sometimes feels like a hard rock take on Japanese heavy metal bands like Loudness or Bow Wow/Vow Wow. Of course, Neon Rider are nowhere near Tokyo, instead hailing from a different capital, Buenos Aires in Argentina, and it's an interesting approach to music that otherwise owes a lot to the heavier end of Journey.

Those heavier songs are mostly on the first half, with Unleash Your Fire being my favourite in that vein, but there's a return to power at the end of the album because Riders of the Night wraps the show up with some major emphasis. The bulk of the second half, after the edgy guitars of Compass Rose but before that emphatic closer, holds things back more, hearkening back to the openers but taking it a step further. Surreal and Standing by the Edge are a little softer and One and Only is an outright ballad. What's important is that, while the the urgency drops a little, it's still there and I particularly like the guitar solos in Standing by the Edge with their lovely liquid tone.

I'm not a huge fan of ballads, but I have to underline that those liquid guitars elevate this one and a ramp up a minute and a half in doesn't hurt either. It moves from ballad to power ballad, but it's a good one. Other touches that I liked here include the riffs in I Lay My Life in Rock and Roll, which reminded me of Randy Rhoads on early Ozzy albums, and on Riders of the Night, which are vicious by comparison, reminding more of Iron Maiden's Back to the Village. This closer ends up as one of my standout tracks, not merely because of the guitarwork but because of the interesting use of a children's choir, which includes some of the band member's children.

I don't see a lot online about Neon Rider, who only seem to have a Facebook page that's still new enough to not have a friendly url, but I'm guessing that'll change as they establish themselves. It was good to hear them on Chris Franklin's essential melodic rock radio show Raised on Rock and I expect that they'll travel a lot further than that too, with a sound that's rock but nods to metal, a sound that's also polished but also retains an edge, a sound that's clearly well produced but still bursts out of the speakers with sheer energy. I'm presuming this is their debut album and it does a solid job of pointing the way to the next one. Their destination may be unknown but they seem to know where they're going.

Black Sky Giant - The Red Chariot (2024)

Country: Argentina
Style: Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 1 Jan 2024
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Black Sky Giant, one of my favourite South American psychedelic rock bands, tend to knock out an album every January, occasionally adding another later in the year, and here's their 2024 release, a year to the day since Primigenian. I say "their" but I still know nothing about the band, which is very possibly one highly talented multi-instrumentalist recording in his basement somewhere in Rosario, Argentina. Whoever's responsible, I'm a confirmed fan of theirs because this is the third emphatically reliable release in a row that I've heard from Black Sky Giant.

As I've mentioned in my previous reviews, they play a form of lively psychedelic rock that's always in motion. I don't think I've heard a single track by them where I feel like I'm sat in one place just looking at some sort of spectacle; I always feel like I'm being transported through that spectacle, usually on the surface of some alien planet. While there's always a space rock tag on the album's page on Bandcamp, the same caveat as ever applies. Sure, I'm out there somewhere when I hear this, but I'm firmly planted. I'm not travelling through the cosmos, I'm travelling through the cool desert geography of a very large rock in space. I have no idea which planet I'm on but it's not this one.

This is more of the same, but with a few more tweaks. One becomes obvious on the title track that opens up the album, because it does so like an eighties goth song perked up in the early industrial era, before it develops into another psychedelic journey. A Timeless Oracle goes back to this sound too, as if it's a Bauhaus song played at double speed. It's an odd feeling, as if we're looking at this landscape through frosted shower glass rather. It's definitely more mechanical than anything I've heard from the band before, but it never trumps the organic feel that's inherent throughout. It's there on Submerged Towers too, so it's definitely a slight direction shift.

I like all three of those tracks but I like Path better. This one begins with a heavy chord and moves on slowly. As I mentioned, Black Sky Giant's music is always about motion for me but it's rarely this slow. It's steady too, as if we're unafraid of anything that shows up in our vision and from any side, given that the guitar darts around like it's playing every inquisitive animal on this planet. Even at the three minute mark when it gets dangerous and we speed up and that fauna gets agitated, we still feel safe because we're armoured. Two and a half minutes later, it all calms down again, as if we've passed the danger area or perhaps simply made friends with whatever was in it.

Danger is a rare creature in Black Sky Giant's music. Illuminated by Reflection is more typical for them, because there's all the exploration without any of the danger, either apparent or ignored. It's a more joyous trip, even when it bulks up late on. And that's how the album works through its second half. If there's danger, it's weird western danger, which is wild and unexpected and harder to plan for, so we just maintain an element of awareness wherever we go but don't overly concern ourselves with what might be out there.

I've praised the bass a lot on previous Black Sky Giant albums and every instrument does its job on this one, but, especially as the album moves towards its end, the guitar comes to the fore in ways that deserve credit. Everything here is instrumental, so it could be said that the guitar is soloing all the time on every track, but it's often playing a part. On Electrical Civilization, it feels open, as if whatever Moebius-esque vehicle we're travelling in has an open top and we're standing up and expressing our pleasure to our surroundings. I almost suggested that a passenger stood up to play guitar but I've never felt like there are passengers in these Black Sky Giant vehicles; I'm always on my own, revelling in the isolation.

Even more than Electrical Civilization, Augury is the first track where the guitar solo feels as much like a guitar solo as it does some sort of living being or emotional outburst. It's very tasty indeed, even though it's overshadowed by the best guitar on the album, which is on the closer, In the Sight of the Mountain God. This is the epic of the album, which isn't unusual for a closer, but it's only six minutes long, which doesn't seem particularly epic. However, it does bring back some of the weird western flavour that is never far from Black Sky Giant's sound.

And so this is a third 7/10 in a row for Black Sky Giant at Apocalypse Later. They certainly work in a very specific niche but they've nailed it and I relish these return trips to wherever it is that they're taking us.

Skiltron - Bruadarach (2023)

Country: Argentina
Style: Folk/Power Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 1 Dec 2023
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | Official Website | Twitter | YouTube

I've been fascinated with how South America has fallen in love with Celtic music ever since hearing Tuatha de Danann. They're from Varginha in the southern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and this band are from Buenos Aires in Argentina, but Varginha is closer to there than it is to half the rest of Brazil. Well, I say Buenos Aires because that's where they started, as Century in 1997, shifting to Skiltron in 2004, but only two of the five current members are Argentinean. New vocalist Paolo Ribaldini is Italian and based in Finland nowadays, where drummer Joonas Nislin already was, playing for folk/melodic metal band Frosttide since its founding in 2009. That leaves Pereg Ar Bagol, a French piper who contributes tin whistle in addition to bagpipes.

This is Skiltron's sixth album, but also their first since 2016, which helps explain why I haven't heard them before. I like what I hear and it really does combine the two genres I listed above. It starts as folk metal, the intro kicking in with rhythmic acoustic guitar and growing into full on bagpipes, and much of it stays there, with songs about Rob Roy and Scottish independence, those pipes a pivotal part of the band's sound, even if Bagol used to be considered a session musician before joining the band as a full fledged member. However, Ribaldini sings power metal almost exclusively across the entire album and the instrumentation behind him sometimes follows suit.

Case in point: the first track proper, As We Fight. It opens with bagpipes, so it's no stretch to see it as folk metal. However, when Ribaldini opens his mouth and Bagol closes his, it's power metal and we start to wonder where they cross the boundary between the genres. In many ways, they don't, because it's never as simple as being folk metal when the bagpipes are playing and power metal when there are words to be delivered. There are plenty of moments when both are happening at the same time and we hear both genres simultaneously.

What's more, there are tracks that play far more overtly as one or the other. Where the Heart Is feels like power metal, even when the bagpipes start playing. It feels like the song was built from the ground up to be power metal and they're a folk decoration. On the other hand, the very next song, Proud to Defend, feels like folk metal from its very first drum beat, which arrives before the bagpipes show up, and it continues to feel like folk metal even when Ribaldini starts singing. He's anthemic on this one but in a timeless manner. The song and its lyric feel aged, as if it doesn't only predate this album but all of us and a few generations before us. It's just showing up again here in a new form.

What I found fascinating was how versatile the power metal is. The folk metal is always very much in the Celtic tradition, whether we look at it lyrically or instrumentally. However, the power metal varies depending on the song. Initially, it starts out in the European vein, perhaps unsurprisingly given that all the Celtic nations and regions are part of Europe. However, there are songs where it seems far more American and sometimes even dipping more into a commercial arena rock or glam metal vein, as on I Am What I Am, which is rather like a folk metal band covering Twisted Sister.

Most unusually, I heard the American sound in the verses of A Treasure Beyond Imagination, but a European one in the choruses. In the midsection, when it shifts into instrumental mode, it's purest folk metal, suggesting that we get up and dance a jig. It's a fascinating melding of genres and, for that reason, it's probably a good place to start for anyone who hasn't heard Skiltron before but is interested in finding out what they do. They do a lot and they sometimes do it all in the same song. What's important is that it works. Not one of these songs seems lesser for staying in one genre or for expanding into two or three.

If I had to call out favourites, though, I'd go with Proud to Defend, Rob Roy and Haste Ye Back. This suggests that I'm more on board with the folk metal than the power metal. The middle of those three is a pacy piece that, just as its title suggests, tells a historical story, a quintessential folk tale based, however loosely, on a real person. Its bookends both play out emphatically as Celtic folk metal, Haste Ye Back in particular featuring some wonderful pipes that shape the riff and set the whole song into motion. It's a ceilidh of a song.

And so the mystery deepens. Why has Celtic folk music made such a strong impact in South America? Answers on the back of a postcard to the usual address. In the meantime, I'm happy that it has.

Soulkick - Hide the End (2023)

Country: Argentina
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Oct 2023
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Twitter | YouTube

Lead vocalist Pablo Zuccalá kindly sent me a copy of Soulkick's debut album a couple of years ago. I was happy to review it and they were happy enough with what I said about it to send me the follow up. I'm glad that they lived up to the title of that debut, No Turning Back, because this is a slightly more mature version of the same thing and it sounds very good indeed. They hail from Argentina and play a contemporary form of hard rock that's rooted in the classic rock era but with touches of more modern alternative rock, toned down a little here in favour of glimpses at prog metal.

The word of the day is elegance, starting with the mix, which is absolutely pristine. That's elegant riffing to kick off Sign of the Times and a powerful back end to punctuate it. Soulkick remain a four piece band, so the bass of Charlie Giardina is easily identifiable throughout without dropping the sound into bass heavy mode. I liked that about the debut and I like it even more here. Zuccalá is a little reminiscent of Geoff Tate on this song and often throughout the album. He doesn't have the same range, of course, because precious few singers do, but he drops impressively low on Empty Faces given how he's much higher everywhere else, and he never stretches beyond his limits.

If there's a flaw, it's in how he sometimes tries a little too hard to emulate other singers or styles when he could have remained in his own style just as effectively. He doesn't need to, but it's easy to tell when he does. Empty Faces, for instance, may start out almost like an Outlaws song, but it quickly becomes a Metallica ballad with a grungy filter over it, mostly because of the vocals. I preferred The Rope, which starts out with riffage reminiscent of Motörhead but on which Zuccalá doesn't remotely try to sound like Lemmy. The riff remains, however, and it builds and even ends like a Motörhead song.

It's always interesting to try to figure out Soulkick's influences because guitarist Christian Vidal is also Therion's guitarist and has been for well over a decade now, but there isn't anything here of their sound. Instead, they draw from AOR, classic rock, NWOBHM and alt rock, and much of that is in the guitarwork. There's some Scorpions in Sign of the Times, especially during the solo, and Van Halen in Last Goodbye and Reasons. Make Believe ups the heaviness with a neat bass riff to start and there's an even heavier riff halfway through Carved in Stone.

Sometimes, of course, what I hear, isn't necessarily something that I could fairly call an influence. While those nods to Metallica and Motörhead are clearly deliberate, Last Goodbye shifts into high gear with a riff that reminds me of Jan Cyrka's Western Eyes, an instrumental that Tommy Vance used as backing music on the Friday Rock Show. Instead of Tommy's urgent voice running through another rock chart, though, this softens up a little for the sung parts and heavies back up for the instrumental sections, an approach that they employ on many of these songs. I don't expect that Soulkick tuned into the Friday Rock Show or heard Cyrka elsewhere, of course. It'll be coincidence.

Once again, there are no bad songs, merely those which connect better than others on a personal level. I happened to appreciate the attitude of Perfect Day, the sassiness infusing Reasons and the heavy riff in Carved in Stone, but you may focus on other details and be just as right as me. There are no definitive answers, just individual tastes. I might suggest that Voices in the Night and On the Road are the least interesting songs on offer, but I have to add that the former is almost textbook solid. I could see that being someone's favourite song of the eleven on offer. It just doesn't aim to do anything fancy because it doesn't need to.

My favourite song surprised me because it's the most alt rock song here, namely The Lighthouse. I heard that influence a lot on the debut and it's less evident here, but The Lighthouse is an alt rock song, even if it's clean and nuanced, especially in the vocals. Zuccalá betrays a slight accent there, but it just adds a subtle exotic flavour because he chooses to sing in English throughout, similarly to someone like Klaus Meine. Sure, we know English isn't their first language, but they're fluent enough to deliver and intonate effectively. Those accents add rather than subtract.

I have no idea how well Soulkick are doing down there in Buenos Aires or internationally, now that the internet has shrunk the world. Based on their first two albums, they should be doing very well indeed, thank you very much. I hope that's the case. Now, how about album three in 2025?

Spell Garden - Spell Garden (2023)

Country: Brazil/Argentina
Style: Doom Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 22 Jan 2023
Sites: Instagram | Metal Archives

Well, this found me at just the right moment. Last week ended with albums that are clearly slick and capable and professional, attributes that bands strive towards, but they just left me dry. I'm talking especially about Ten and Xandria and I'm very happy to say that this second album by Spell Garden is the precise opposite and felt like a breath of fresh air. They're an international team up between one musician from Argentina and two from Brazil who play a form of doom metal that's not averse to dropping down into stoner rock and this is their second album.

Most crucially, even for a second album, it's not remotely slick. There are rough edges to be found all over this release, details that other bands would have polished smooth and gleaming, but they make this sound real. I felt this music and, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how technically brilliant you are, your job is to make people feel what you do. Spell Garden succeed magnificently at that. Ten and Xandria might impress stadiums with shows. I'd much prefer be at a club the size of my front room being deafened by Spell Garden with a stout in my hand.

Now, rough edges don't mean that Spell Garden are free of subtleties. While much of this appears to be a power trio plugging in and recording live in the studio, there are layers behind these three musicians. I don't just mean the swirling atmospheric keyboards on Mars Crimson Mountain which aren't surprising at all; I'm thinking of the violins on Lilith and the way that song drops into piano to finish up. The acoustic Spanish guitar during the intro, Daughter of the Storm, points the way to that sort of thing and it's over far too soon. It's important to note that the band don't overdo the textures. They're there when they're needed and then they get back to the crunch.

The biggest success here are the riffs, which come courtesy of Raphael Santos. These go way back to the early days of Black Sabbath in style but remind of latter days because they're so simple but effective. Back in the late eighties, I remember wondering how Tony Iommi could keep generating such effortlessly simple riffs over and over again. He'd already invented the genre and bands had been mining it for a couple of decades, but they'd all missed this simple riff and that one and the next one too. Somehow only Iommi and precious few others had access to more. Well, Santos can be added to that list. It's 2023, people. How has nobody conjured up riffs like those on Lilith, Spell Garden and Black Chapter before?

A less obvious success but a clear success nonetheless are the drums of Allan Caique. For much of the album, he's not doing anything flash, but I love the cymbal sound and he does delightful work with those cymbals on Dogma and Ritual of High Magic and especially during the breakdown late in Mars Crimson Mountain. I adore how the latter works its way to a logical conclusion, only for the cymbals to keep going until the band ramps back up and Santos launches into a brief guitar solo. It reminded me of some of what Michael Giles did on the first King Crimson album.

Less successful are the vocals, but I need to explain. Two musicians share vocal duties here and I'm not sure which is which, but there's a clean voice and a harsh voice. The clean voice shows up first, on Goddess Roots, the first track proper, and it's capable if hardly spectacular. It shows a lot more character on Spell Garden, because it's emphasised, rather like a heavily accented South American Iggy Pop recorded guerrilla style. The harsh voice is great when it's an accent, as on Spell Garden, but less effective when it's the lead, as on Black Chapter, because too much of it at any one time is a clear indicator of how limited it actually is.

And here's where rating systems prove frustrating. I gave Ten and Xandria 7/10s because both are highly capable releases that ought to please their respective fanbases. This is rougher around the edges with less clear mature songwriting and flaws that are easy to highlight, but I enjoyed it far more than either of those slicker albums. So, while I felt bad at giving those a high rating of 7/10, I feel bad at giving this a low rating of 7/10. So it goes. I guess this is where words come into play...

Black Sky Giant - Primigenian (2023)

Country: Argentina
Style: Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 1 Jan 2023
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

When I saw that there was a new Black Sky Giant album out, I assumed that it was the follow-up to what I thought was their debut, Planet Terror, which I enjoyed back in 2021. Well, it turns out that these unknown Argentineans have been busy. Not only was there at least an album before Planet Terror, as Orbiter came out in 2020 and was remastered in 2021, but two more sprang up after it, in 2021's Falling Mothership and last year's End of Days Pilgrimage. I need to pay more attention! So this is at least a fifth for Black Sky Giant and it's just as good as Planet Terror.

For those who didn't take that trip with me almost two years ago, this is a band or project who are based in Argentina but play thoroughly accessible psychedelic rock that's warm and encompassing without the fuzzy distortion of stoner rock. The other genre I see mentioned a lot is space rock and that needs a caveat. Black Sky Giant don't sound at all like Hawkwind, but they do seem to elevate off our planet. Both At the Gates and Stardust feature wonderful bass runs that I picture as us on the surface of a planet exploring what's there, while the guitars are vibrant lights in the sky, way up above us to marvel at.

At the Gates is my favourite piece of music here—song seems like the wrong term to use with each song being entirely instrumental—but it's not by much, because everything is up to a pretty solid standard, starting with the opening title track. It only runs three and a half minutes, which isn't a long time to establish a new setting to transport us into. It manages it, not least in its last handful of seconds, which add a population to whatever strange planet we've found ourselves on. They feel like the beginning of At the Gates before that track starts proper, and so flavour our take on it.

And it's a wonderful piece. Everything about Black Sky Giant seems to involve motion for me, with other elements added depending on the track. This is excellent from the start, as we explore this strange new world, but it elevates halfway through when it drops back just a little to highlight the bass and so split this into two levels. It's not just us exploring any more, it's whoever was there on this planet before us watching us and attempting to communicate. The result is joyous.

Stardust is a continuation, but it's a little less emphatic. The Great Hall adds that emphasis back, but never in a dangerous way. Black Sky Giant take us on journeys, and they're rich and evocative journeys, but they never feel dangerous to me. Nothing out there in the great beyond is eager to eat me or threaten me or imprison me. I wouldn't call this happy music per se but it always leaves me in a better mood than I brought with me. I'm not quite sure what I've learned and experienced but it was clearly a net positive.

That holds even into The Foundational Found Tapes, the eight and a half minute epic that wraps up the album. While the guitars dance like fireflies, there's a low tone behind them that really ought to feel ominous, but somehow it doesn't. Maybe there's something out there in the darkness that moves in the shadows but I never felt that it was anything to worry about, especially with the click and shimmy of film equipment, as if we're hearing this track through a slides-driven presentation. Given the title, I wonder if it was built out of parts of songs, a Frankenstein's monster of a piece. It works a little less coherently than everything else, but it still works.

Now, I need to get hold of those albums that I've missed. Quite frankly, whoever's behind Black Sky Giant ought to be happy with a couple of albums of the quality of Planet Terror and Primigenian in only a couple of years. That that's only half their output just elevates them even higher. If you like your stoner rock low on fuzz and high on warmth and imagination, this is the psychedelic rock that you ought to track down. It rarely blows my mind, but it carries me effortlessly and it's as reliable as it gets.

Soulkick - No Turning Back (2021)

Country: Argentina
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 30 Apr 2021
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Official Website | Twitter | YouTube

Many thanks to Pablo Zuccalá, the lead vocalist for Soulkick, for sending me their debut album to look at for review. It underlines something I've been discovering for a few years now, namely that there's a vibrant rock/metal scene in South America nowadays that runs all the way across the genres. This is one more album from one more band from down there that's worth checking out and I'm certain that I haven't even scratched the surface yet.

Soulkick hail from Buenos Aires in Argentina and they play a form of hard rock that occasionally thinks about venturing into heavy metal but never quite does. It reminded me a lot of the British bands that grew up everywhere in the mid eighties after the pioneers of the NWOBHM era had shown that there was a serious audience for rock music. Much of what I hear on this album comes from that particular era of British hard rock: the riffs on songs like No Turning Back and Hands of Time; the melodies on No Shelter and The Walls; and even the Whitesnake-esque bluesy swagger of Dagger.

However, there are newer sounds too and the other one I caught often was nineties alternative rock. It's a dominant aspect on Would, which closes out the album, but there's a grunginess that's obvious in songs like Mirror Eyes and The Circle as well. It's kind of like Elixir got crossed with Pearl Jam with some Sammy Hagar era Van Halen added to the mix too. What they don't sound like, at all, are any of the other bands that the musicians play for, like Therion and the Eric Martin Band, two very different outfits indeed that are just are different from Soulkick.

Guitarist Christian Vidal has been with Therion since 2010 and there's absolutely nothing here of that band's sound. The rhythm section of Charlie Giardiana and Pablo Garrocho both play with Eric Martin, or have done (I'm not seeing a current line-up) and, while there's a little of that sound here, it's only a little. This band definitely chose to go their own way, perhaps to play with a style that they're not used to playing otherwise.

Everyone in the band is good at what they do and everyone in the band gets the opportunity to shine, even though nobody feels the need to show off. They're all aided by the mix, which is excellent. I could hear Giardina's bass throughout, without it ever becoming bass heavy. Sure, it helps that there's only one guitarist in the band so, while Vidal is soloing, that's obviously Giardina keeping the riffs alive in the background, but a song like Would is almost a showcase for the bass, as well as a showcase for the unusual rhythms of Garrocho. This one really gets under the skin.

I'm not sure I could tell you my favourite song. Initially it was the riffier ones, no question. No Turning Back barrels along joyously, while When the Lights are Gone does much the same thing about half the speed. Hands of Time deepens the riffing very effectively, but hands off to Zuccalá who finds a way to both sound urgent and soar at the same time, which is a neat trick. I love the way he sustains melody across a tempo shift forty seconds in. That was when I stopped paying attention to the guitars quite as much. There's a lot more here than that and it's not just what's in Would.

This is obviously a good album from the outset but it's one that gets better with repeat listens, as we discover what else the band are doing beyond what we thought they were doing to start with. All that may be missing, I think, is the killer single. No Turning Back tries to be that and does a pretty good job at it too, but the overall effect definitely trumps any individual song. What that means is, while I may not be waking up with any of these songs playing in my head tomorrow morning, I know I'd love to see this band live and I want to hear a second album in a year or two to see how they develop.

Black Sky Giant - Planet Terror (2021)

Country: Argentina
Style: Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 16 Jan 2021
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook

Somehow I switched on auto-replay on VLC and listened through Planet Terror for much longer than I had planned. It's an immersive release, containing seven songs to fall into, but in a slightly different way to normal. Instead of our simply aiming to explore the depths of the music, we want the music to become our surroundings so that we can explore where it takes us. For instance, Ghost Valley Truckers is notably well named because we fall into the rhythm of the road as we roar through Ghost Valley at night, wherever that is. It's not the soundtrack, it's the trance state that the road soothes us into and the hyperfocus we find on what else is going on.

Black Sky Giant hail from Rosario, four hours up the road from Buenos Aires, and they play a form of stoner rock with the fuzz turned down and the psychedelic warmth turned up. There are sections that are heavier than others, but the focus is more on bluesy psychedelia than doom metal crunch. There's plenty of Black Sabbath here, of course, but that influence is more obvious from spacier songs like Planet Caravan than its more famous brethren. Mix it with some Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the psychedelic blues of Robin Trower's Bridge of Sighs, then up the tempo and you'll have Black Sky Giant doing Yithian Time Travellers.

I should add that this is entirely instrumental, though there's a sample right as the album begins and a few more as it runs on, especially on the final track, The Phantom Gun. I'm tempted to argue that an affectation for westerns is the final piece of this puzzle, because there was a spaghetti western feel on Asteroid Hermit long before we get to The Phantom Gun. As the cover art suggests, we find ourselves deep into weird western territory here.

Everything is a frontier, whether we're out in the belt mining asteroids, battling monsters on an alien planet or driving through the desert night keeping our eyes open for bandits. There isn't much space rock, merely moments in and amongst songs like Ulameth (Endbringer), but there are keyboards to paint textures in sound and make us feel like we're on a journey. The samples on Ghost Valley Truckers feel like rare radio signals getting through, before leaving us alone with our thoughts once more, back out on the frontier beyond the reach of other humans. What species are those bandits?

It still seems strange to me, however many times I've listened through this album now, that there's an overt sense of desolation on so many of these tracks, given that the tone is emphatically warm. I think it's because the soft beat is so relentless and the bass pulses ever onwards, ensuring that we never feel that we're anything but confident and safe, however far from home we roam and how much danger we might run into out there in the middle of nowhere. It's wonderful worldbuilding.

My favourite track is Ulameth (Endbringer), though it's a little longer than it should be. It starts out like a fifties B-movie, but then focuses inward. Initially, it struggles to find itself, as if it's focusing on a point that it can never reach, but, a couple of minutes in, it focuses even further inward. This album is warm and liquid and organic from the beginning, but it gets downright amniotic on Ulameth. This one feels like being in the womb. Maybe that counts as another frontier, one we're not quite ready to breach yet.

I wish I knew who the musicians were on this album so I could praise them for their work. I can't find out much of anything about Black Sky Giant, just that they're from Argentina and they recorded this last month, making it a quick release. In fact, I know more about the cover art than I do the band; the Bandcamp page for the album tells me that's by Pablo González, who is GonzoSkulls on Instagram, as cool a name as I've ever coveted. He illustrated this album well, but so did the musicians who brought it to life.

Now, let me reload my six shooter and saddle up my trusty steed, then we can venture out once more to tangle with the monsters lurking beyond the perimeter.

Qüassi - Mareas (2020)

Country: Argentina
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 9 Oct 2020
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

One of the standard things we critics often do when reviewing music is to compare a particular album to other bands that you're likely to have heard, in order to give you a reference point. I'd do that here but I have no idea who to bring up.

Sure, there's a lot of prog rock here, but Qüassi, from Mendoza, Argentina, don't sound at all like Yes, Genesis or King Crimson, let alone anyone newer. They play entirely instrumental music, but that's not enough to suddenly bring ELP into the mix. There's a lot of psychedelic rock here, so maybe the comparisons should be to bands who mix those two genres, but I didn't hear early Floyd, Hawkwind or even someone like Ozric Tentacles. Perhaps the latter are the closest, but Qüassi aren't as organic and they're nowhere near as reliant on electronics, even on their spacier pieces.

There's a huge amount of jazz here as well, enough of it that I could understand them being described as a jazz band with firm prog influences rather than vice versa, though I don't get the impression that all these songs are improvised jams in the studio, though some songs are looser than others, such as Solitario Spider and Marea. I'm not suggesting that these pieces were planned out meticulously, but I tend to expect pure improvisation to have that recognisable jazz drum sound and the drums here are very confident in where things are going. I often wish I had a deeper grounding in jazz fusion and this is another of those times; I'm sure there are comparisons to be made there.

What I can say is that there are other sounds here, trawled in as needed for a particular song. Vortice could be defined as jazz prog but it's really a sliding scale that veers from lounge music at one end to space rock at the other. Trashilvania has a krautrock feel to it, combining drones and pulses, some of them harsh, into something musical, only for what I presume is a vibraphone to suddenly infuse it all with warmth. That makes for another wild contrast, something that Qüassi handle very well.

Solitario Spider, surely my favourite track here, is led by a melodious guitar that I'd expect to hear in Caribbean music. It repeatedly throws out a melody for the rest of the band to respond to in an array of different ways, which vary wildly. That guitar returns on Matematicofrustrado, which I expected to be a lot more complex given the name (it translates to Frustrated Mathematician), but is still one of my highlights here.

Amapolas is an exotic track, with Egyptian and Indian sounds in the hand drums (and sitar?), though it also finds recognisable melodies. Was that Ravel's Bolero? I think it was. It's an oddity that, given the presence of lounge here, this isn't remotely exotica, merely elements of world music brought into the jazz prog.

I have no idea who any of the musicians are in this band, though their Facebook band photo suggests that there are four of them. While they're all clearly capable, I want to praise whoever's playing vibes because they're a constant gamechanger on an already interesting album. The drummer also deserves special mention for ramping into an outrageous solo on Reverbi, almost without the rest of the band noticing, which is surreal. I like the bass here a lot too, especially on songs like Solitario Spider, when it prowls carefully but confidently.

I liked this a lot, even if it's not remotely easy to pigeonhole. If you like the idea of prog jazz psych, I doubt I need to say much more. If you have no idea what that might sound like and the cover art isn't enough to give you an idea, I recommend checking this album out to see.

Afterpain - The Endless Cycle (2020)

Country: Argentina
Style: Symphonic Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 21 Aug 2020
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube

Here's another submission for review, this time from a symphonic metal band from Buenos Aires. The band appear to be a trio, with Fernando Rey (no, not that one) on most of the instruments, including guitar, bass and drums, though there are three guests providing guitar solos and, on a pair of songs, rhythm too. Mauro Fallico adds keyboards, while Vanina Coletti handles vocal duties. They've been a band for six years now but this is their debut album.

My initial impression was that their sound was decent but nothing out of the ordinary. If I threw out "symphonic metal" at a random point in conversation, this is exactly what would immediately come to mind. The drums are patient but versatile, the guitars are elegant and classy, the keyboards are an ever-present texture and occasional lead. Coletti's vocals are perhaps the only element not precisely as we might expect, though she's really close; the difference is that it sounds like she has a rock voice that's taking on the symphonic style rather than the usual classical voice that's rocking it up a bit.

I should emphasise that all of this is done well (and further listens underline that). It merely doesn't get surprising. At this point, I was mostly impressed at how solid the musicianship was, given that it was mostly the work of one man. I hoped, as the album ran on, that it would depart a little from the standard genre template and I can happily say that it does, if not particularly often. It gets better in time not because of anything particularly innovative but because it's just performed so well and in a way that takes us deeper into the songs with each listen.

The most ambitious song is clearly Despair of the Brave. The other ten songs on offer all run between four and six minutes, but this one's a long blink shy of ten. It doesn't mix things up much but it does add a dramatic spoken section in the middle and there's a particularly nice transition right after it. It isn't the imaginative epic I hoped it might be, but it's engaging and lively and it never drags, even at this length.

It's worth mentioning that the album never drags either, even though it's a generous hour in length. I think that's more to do with the sound being consistently upbeat than any innovative songwriting, but a second listen showed that these songs are deeper than I thought initially. There's a lot of to and fro between Rey and Fallico, epitomised by the midsection of Enemy, as if to underline that there are two musicians here: one on keyboards and one on everything else.

In particular, the band really know how to grab our attention and they do that rather a lot and often in deceptively simple ways that don't stand out at the time but turn out to be really clever. I enjoyed the opener, Flying Dreams, but it didn't wow me until the keyboards, guitar and voice merge in a glorious crescendo and I grinned at how simple but highly effective that was.

The standout track for me is Rage, which has a fantastic intro and some real attitude. Everyone seems to be performing harder and with more edge and it works on every level. It's fair to say that I wanted more of this across the other songs but the band didn't want to deliver that elsewhere. Enemy does it early but then calms down to allow Coletti's voice to take the lead. This one highlights her rock voice as well as anything else here, except perhaps parts of Monster or especially the end of Lights Out, as she sustains a long note with a heck of a lot of power.

Oddly right after the angrier Rage is the exact opposite: Forgive Us is the power ballad on the album. I'm discovering that I like power ballads less and less as the years go by but this one succeeded by not annoying me and that's becoming a real compliment from me. I kinda liked this power ballad and that was my biggest surprise here. It's a really good song.

Well, there was one other surprise, beyond how much songs like Misery and Eternal Prisoner build on a second listen, and that's the closer. I liked the old timey radio bit to kick off Bye Bye Bye, which is another upbeat song that pulls back to let Coletti's voice in. The surprise is that it sounds so utterly like a pop cover that I looked it up and was shocked to find that it's an *NSYNC song. I really wasn't expecting that.

In summary, this is another grower. I've been reviewing a few of those lately, albums that I enjoyed on a first listen but enjoyed a lot more on a second. Now I need to hear someone play Rage as the second half of a double play with Memoira's Snowglobe to set it up. That would be a great radio pairing. And so, I think, would Snowglobe and Forgive Us.

Illutia - Un sitio sin lugar (2020)

Country: Argentina
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 10 Apr 2020
Sites: Facebook

Here's a very tasty prog rock album with a strong side of melodic rock. It's the first release from Illutia, who hail from Buenos Aires in Argentina, and it's very mature for a debut. I see that two of the four members used to be in another band together called Eden Khatru, who were highly regarded, even though they never released anything. Maybe this has been a long time coming, especially as Illutia formed in 2012.

It's mostly light in tone, though not light in substance at all. There are a couple of dark moments on the opener, Pretexto silencioso (Silent Pretext), but they're not heavy, just textured a little darker than the upbeat nature of the music would allow. Even if this has the patience of a Pink Floyd and the ingenuity of a Genesis, it still feels far more eighties than seventies. The obvious comparisons are to neoprog and AOR, with each of the seven songs here radio friendly if not for running times that only start at four minutes and run up to almost nine and the proggier elements that are responsible for that.

In particular, I'm thinking Genesis and Marillion but not at the points that most people try to emulate. The Genesis influence is from the early Collins era; Gabriel has left and the band are moving towards a poppier sound but it isn't poppy enough yet to translate into chart success. The Marillion sound is post-Fish but not really Hogarth yet. Again it's a point of transition, a prog band liking the idea of pop success but not wanting to ditch the proggy elements that they love so much.

It would be interesting to see whether listeners think of Illutia as a pop band dabbling in prog or a prog band dabbling in pop. I'd generally go with the latter, but it may depend on the song. Both En el hielo (On the Ice) and Máscaras que caen (Masks That Fall) are most obviously prog tracks first and foremost, but Ojos de espectador (Spectator's Eyes) starts out so perky that it becomes hard not to think of it as pop first.

Both the link between Genesis and Marillion and the boundary between a prog mindset and a pop one is most overt in the keyboards, which probably means that the key player here is keyboard player Marcelo Chipont, who's credited on piano, synths and sequencers. However, Leandro Calello, who contributes guitar and bass, also did some sequencing work. It's telling that these are the two members who used to be in the Genesis-influenced Eden Khatru.

The result is that this is very easy on the ears, though not so much that it fades into becoming background music. I listened to this a few times while I ran reports at work and the melodies, however gentle, kept me from drifting away from the music. Another factor in that is the fact that the guitar is a surprisingly low element in the mix, coming out to shine during gorgeous solos (just check out the title track for one of those!) but at other times oddly less prominent than Calello's bass, which surely takes the lead role here after the vocals of Leondro Ejarque on a number of tracks. It certainly leads us into the album on Pretexto silencioso.

The most obvious exception, because nothing is a firm rule with Illutia, is Eterno otoño (Eternal Autumn), which is a delightful instrumental piece, at heart a duet between guitar and synths. That it's easily my favourite track here doesn't for one moment mean that I don't enjoy the vocals. Máscaras que caen isn't too far behind in the grand scheme of things, not least because a nine minute song like this really knows how to breathe. The title track is a great choice too and, frankly, so is everything else here.

The worst thing about the album is that it ends and that there isn't a back catalogue that I can go and explore. This is it for Illutia for now and so I really hope we see another album soon. It may be deceptively light, but this is a stellar debut from a band who deserve a long and distinguished career. The more I listen to it, the more I like it and I liked it from moment one.

Fughu - Lost Connection (2020)

Country: Argentina
Style: Progressive Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Feb 2020
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives | Official Website | Prog Archives | Twitter

Here's an interesting album that the band sent me for review. Fughu are from Buenos Aires in Argentina and they play progressive metal, but perhaps not a flavour that you've heard before. They mix older influences with new ones to end up somewhere new and I like it. Interestingly, it starts out without any metal in evidence whatsoever. The first couple of minutes of Peggy are prog rock, pure and simple, but eventually the guitar crunches in and the vocals get even wilder.

Now, I should add that the vocals were already wild. Renzo Favaro sings lead and he does so with theatrical character. I really didn't know what to think when his heavily accented English first kicked in and it got stranger as the opener ran on, continuing down that path as the band move onto Pixel Hero. I got used to it after a few songs, though, and it's easily the most memorable angle to Fughu. There are influences you might expect, like Geoff Tate, but Favaro goes way beyond that. He trawls in David Byrne, Serj Tankian and even Freddie Mercury, whatever style he needs for the moment.

Once we're used to what Favaro gets up to, we start to focus on the rest of the band. Maybe that's by Call Now, where the music almost goes down a folk dance road at one point but takes a wild left turn into a sort of beatboxing segment, which soon evolves into a guitar solo. On the softer side, Stay is driven as much by the enticing bass of Juan Manuel Lopez as anything else, a folk vocal chant notwithstanding. Ay ay ay!

While we notice those versatile vocals first, we eventually realise that the music is just as versatile and the four musicians responsible are tight and apparently up for pretty much anything. The Goat came out of nowhere for me, with a slow but inexorably driving industrial rock aesthetic that actually stops halfway to turn into something oddly ambient, as if the factory being mimicked shut for the night and the band forgot to switch off their sample recorder.

But a lot of these songs come out of nowhere. Told You is a very heavy song, except when it isn't: there are peaceful sections in there, not to mention a quiet introspective one, but the end result is heavy. Right from the Bone is heavy at points too but it's a funky playful track, drifting from krautrock to System of a Down and back again. What If becomes all neo-prog and I dug the instrumental section.

If Stay isn't my favourite, then it's Martian, which is all over the place, like a jazz assassin. Favaro delivers carefully with storytelling melodies, while Alejandro Lopez dominates the instrumentation with an improvisational drum attack. Then it turns into an acid trip, but it emerges vibrant, alive and inquisitive, back at the beginning but with extra layers. Eventually it takes off, soaring around us with keyboards and even operatic vocals, only a carefully plodding bass keeping us remotely grounded.

I'd usually say here that there's a heck of a lot here and the catch is that not everything lives up to the same level of quality. There are certainly a few songs that I don't like as much, but this is one of those albums that's so varied and interesting that the songs I really like might get old after a while but the songs I don't like much might suddenly pop on a fifth listen. I'm only three in at the moment and a few haven't got there yet.

If its weakest aspect is a perceived lack of consistency, its strongest must be that it's engaging enough that I'll easily end up past five listens soon enough. After all, I haven't found the kitchen sink yet and I'm pretty sure it's in here. Everything else is.

Aridonia - Aridonia (2020)

Country: Argentina
Style: Psychedelic Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Feb 2020
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | YouTube

I love how flexible genres can be nowadays. Case in point: how can we place a band like Aridonia into just one pigeonhole? Quick answer: we can't. Just listening to the first track on this, their debut album, I hear it drifting through half a dozen different genres, though the flow is entirely natural.

It's Abismos and it starts out as a soothing, hypnotic and psychedelic rock song. When the fuzzy guitars join in and the vocals get more raucous, we're firmly in stoner rock territory. Then we get all prog with intricate changes and even an ethnic section. The bass of Tomas Longombardo gets some welcome runs during the middle of the song. And the end slows down considerably and heavies up, with a nod towards doom or sludge metal.

I don't know if there's a particular lyrical vision behind the song because Aridonia are from Argentina and sing in Spanish. Google Translate isn't much of a help on this, perhaps because the lyrics are abstract or colloquial. It looks like they're talking about a journey through time and past lives, but I visualised it as a trip down into the depths of the ocean, Abismos meaning Abysses, with the colour of the song representing the weird and wonderful at serious depths and the heaviness representing the weight of the water.

Fantasmagoria is an odd follow-up because the otherworldly images I conjured up from the opener continue but it kicks off with a riff that's reminiscent of Metallica's Frantic, of all things. While Robert Trujillo would leap into bass runs like Longombardo gets here, the rest of that band have become part of the mainstream and we can only attempt to imagine them doing something as interesting as this.

I won't be much of a surprise for a band who delve into both psych and prog, but Fantasmagoria is the shortest song here and it's still over five minutes in length. Abismos is the longest at over nine and it doesn't feel remotely too long. These songs are as long as they need to be and no longer, even at seven or eight minutes.

With the band tight and constantly interesting, the weak spot for me is the vocals which aren't bad but are rough and would fit better on a dirty blues album. The singer is Fernando Echenique, who is also one of two guitarists, so I'd bet money that he thinks of himself as a guitarist who also sings not a singer who also plays. Oddly, when the band get closest to dirty blues, as they do at points on La serpiente y la manzana, he doesn't sing much, though he fits perfectly when he does.

Echenique's voice brings a down to earth garage rock sound to the band which would otherwise seem trippier and more detached from reality. This is music to accompany you during astral travel or on some sort of heroic psychedelic trip. It's often dark but it's always warm, so it's an interesting companion rather than a dangerous one. Its presence is comforting but it does too many imaginative things for us to relax, so we can't and don't want to ignore it. It's almost like a conversation, though I have no idea what I'm contributing to that.

I don't think anything here approaches the majesty of Abismos, but this is a rather immersive album, enough so that I listened three or four times before putting virtual pen to paper. It's easy to get lost in the second half, with Magia negra particularly magnetic but that feeling continuing on through Oda a la memoria and Leviatán for a twenty minute chunk of solid trip.

I should add that I only have a little Spanish, but I could figure out all these song titles without online help (except for one, "manzana", which is "apple", so meaning that La serpiente y la manzana is presumably Biblical). The only bit I'm stuck on is what Aridonia means, because I'm not seeing a reference or a translation, so maybe they just made it up.

Motorbooze - Motorbooze (2020)

Country: Argentina
Style: Southern Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 1 Jan 2020
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Any rock/metal band name that starts with Motor, with or without an umlaut, is automatically going to stir up expectations of being a Motörhead tribute band but that doesn't help Motorbooze, who aren't remotely that. Sure, they clearly like Motörhead and there's a little Motörhead in their sound, but I wouldn't even call it their primary influence. Juan Della Ceca doesn't drum remotely like Philthy or Mikkey and Scorpion Shaw doesn't try to sound like Lemmy at all.

What they sound like is a southern rock band, which is rather appropriate as they hail from Buenos Aires in Argentina, which is rather further south than most southern rock bands! They have a heavy edge, so they're flirting with a southern metal tag constantly but I'd place them more on the rock side of an ever hard to define boundary between rock and metal, even though there's not much Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd here. Think heavier than Black Stone Cherry but not so far down that scale to reach the likes of Exhorder.

While this, their debut album, starts out well enough, I actually think that it gets better as it goes along. Blood kicks things off nicely and it finds a nice groove, but it tries far too hard and there's so much staccato guitar that it lost me a few times. Obliterator plays in a similar vein but it kept me throughout because it stayed in the groove that it found. That it's also an aching groove helps too. It could easily be faster but it doesn't need to be and I appreciate the band fighting the urge.

As the album runs on, I found that those grooves get more engaging. From the relatively simple one midway through Roussian Roulette to the delightful and much deeper groove that pervades Blackmoon Shadows, the band comes across as particularly comfortable on these later songs, as if they were attempting to deliberately push the envelope on earlier, more overt songs and just settled down to what felt most comfortable to them later.

The boundary may be Motherfucking Song, which kind of does both. I love the more restrained solo midway through but I also love how punchy the song gets behind it. All the guitars, whether bass, lead or rhythm, are provided by a man named Sebastián Taux and he does a lot on this song, once the Al Pacino sample that opens it up gives way to the music.

As much as I enjoyed the work of his cohorts in Motorbooze too, I think Taux is what I'll take away most from this album. Shaw steals the limelight from the outset but Taux slowly but surely steals it away from him with a steady succession of solid riffs and elegant solos. I say slowly but surely because he doesn't really do anything flash at any point, so it takes a little while to realise just how good he is. By the time we get to the end of Mindset of Destruction, we realise it even as we acknowledge that it seems effortless for him. The final blitzkrieg is just a bonus.

I should also highlight Chaos Maker, which closes out the album. Everything here runs pretty consistently around four minutes, with Blackmoon Shadows a minute longer than anything else. Then there's Chaos Maker, which is a nine minute epic to wrap things up. And it does feel epic, as if the band took a look at all the things they did on this album and made extra sure to do them all double on this one last track. Somehow, it isn't overdone and the band sound all the better for being let loose like this. I liked it a great deal.

While the name is likely to continue to be misleading and I have no idea at all what the cover art is supposed to be telling us, this is a strong debut for Motorbooze and a solid recommendation for any who prefer their southern rock with a bit of crunch.

Morthifera - Apócrifo (2019)

Country: Argentina
Style: Thrash Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 11 Oct 2019
Sites: Facebook | Instagram | Metal Archives | YouTube

I often like to end the week with a good old fashioned thrash album, because that's the best way to clean out my system for the weekend. This is a really solid one from Argentina that started good and then got even better. They've been around since 2010 but this is only their second full length album, the first being Basurero humano in 2016. They're very good at what they do and I hope that their supporting slot on the recent South American tour of Nuclear Assault brought that to a lot of new ears.

They're an unashamed thrash metal band because they don't tend to shift into other genres, though not everything is played at speed so they could easily be described as heavy/thrash. The opening song highlights that really well: Terapia de represión blisters early and late but slows for some very tasty sections midway, one of them led by a very prominent bass.

I'm impressed by everyone here, but Heber Rojas gets some very nice moments to shine on bass, most obviously in a solo run he delivers on Analepsis, the longest and most technically minded song on offer here. He keeps finding odd moments to elevate the material in ways we don't usually expect, like a solo on Odio heradado or a clever set of notes during a breakdown on Apostasía to enhance the song.

These musicians are notably proficient and willing to experiment a little at points, like in the short flamenco driven instrumental called Núcleo in the very middle of the album, appropriately because Núcleo translates to Core. I could see many describing this as technical thrash because Morthifera rarely take the simple options, even in slower sections.

However, while it's often complex stuff, it never loses its attitude. Daniel Perez sings and screams with punk attitude and there's often a real urgency to the music, that goes beyond thrash being inherently urgent. Just listen to Odio heradado, or Inherited Hate, which would feel like an angry protest song even if we didn't know what it was called. So, while Morthifera can be compared to a technical band like, say, Sieges Even, it's also fair to raise Nuclear Assault too.

As with any thrash band, the real test comes on stage. Audiences react to a sense of immediacy as much as quality and the best pits rely on charismatic delivery as much as the right tempo. On the basis of this album, I'd really like to see Morthifera live. They have all the musical components they need and I'm pretty sure they'll have the attitude to sell them to the audiences at shows too.

My favourite song here, apart from Analepsis, is Verso pollice, or Against the Police, which features a guest appearance from Wata, presumably the one who sings for Buenos Aires death metal band Matan S.A. Oddly, he adds what sound like black metal shrieks, among other vocal contributions, but I like the extra texture. This is a pit song without a doubt and I almost started one here in my office while I was working. It's good fast and it's great as a slow grind.

Not everything here is that great but there's nothing sub-standard here at all. The worst song is a good one and it's all uphill from there. This is a solid second album from Morthifera and I'll now eagerly seek out the first one and perhaps the famous Argentine metal band Lethal, given that I think that's what Morthifera translates to, perhaps in homage. Viva thrash metal sudamericano!

Maybe - Maybe (2019)

Country: Argentina
Style: Progressive Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 18 Mar 2019
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | YouTube

I've been slammed with convention work and Phoenix Film Festival coverage over the past week and the soundtrack to a good part of that has been this album of instrumental prog rock from Brazilian trio Maybe. By this point, it has seeped into my bones and most of it still feels vibrant.

It starts really well, with a few neatly playful tracks that underline how the underlying feel here is seventies prog rock, even if the title of 88mph can't fail to conjure up the eighties instead. It's patient stuff and it's deceptively simple stuff too, given that nobody seems to want to be flash.

I came to realise that 88mph is kind of like someone writing a book in words of only one syllable. That would be easy to read but appear really basic and, in most hands, it would be. However, a clever writer can get across just as much meaning in words of one syllable as words of ten and 88mph demonstrates that Maybe know how to create a heck of a lot with, well, not a heck of a lot (there are only four instruments, played by three people). This feels like a song that should be taught in every music class.

Milazzo is much more complex but it took me a while to realise why it felt a little odd. Generally, it's remiscent of a Focus instrumental with phrasing that reminds of Genesis and King Crimson. It features a heavy organ behind guitarwork that's still patient but much more adventurous than anything on 88mph, while the bass is a very audible companion. And the reason it felt a little odd? The first ten seconds (reprised at the end of the song) sound like they're introducing a Mario Kart level. What felt odd is that I was using a keyboard not a game controller.

Jenga Sobre Gelatina is a good progression (pun not intended) from Milazzo, as it has a similar approach but with new tones, starting out rather funky and then adding Child in Time era Deep Purple. I love this middle section, with a vibrant guitar over achingly patient organ backing.

Compared to these three playful conversations between instruments, Corvette is a little more conventional, especially through the straightforward rock drums and the driving bass. It's like a jazz band decided they wanted to try a rock song for a change, although they couldn't resist mixing things up a little at points because it's who they are.

Maybe III (there's nothing like track names to underline that Focus influence) merges those two approaches into one. It's like that jazz band enjoyed their dalliance with rock conventions on Corvette so much that they decided to play with them some more, but within their usual framework.

So far, so fantastic. I've lost track of how many times I've run through this album but it's in the dozens by now and all five of these tracks are as fresh and as delightful now as they were on the first listen. The three musicians (Matias Villalba on guitar, Osiris Lescano on drums and Juan Alisiardi on bass and keyboards) are very talented individually but they come together joyously as a trio.

Unfortunately, up next is Club Glorias, which is the longest track and easily my least favourite, not because I don't like it but because it doesn't play in the same sandbox as the others and it feels rather notably out of place. It's a solo piano piece for three and a half minutes and it sounds rather like the soundtrack to a silent movie. That doesn't really change, even when the other instruments kick in, unless the experimental nature of the second half means a different silent movie.

I should emphasise that it's good stuff but it marks a pretty severe stylistic shift after a set of five tracks that play far more consistently together. Its second half gets a little closer, but it mostly sets the stage for Bubba Gump, the nine minute final track, which combines that approach with what we heard earlier.

I thoroughly enjoyed this attempt by three young gentlemen from Brazil to play in a musical style that was probably past its heyday by the time each of them was born. Sadly, their Bandcamp page suggests that this is "Maybe's debut and farewell album" because I definitely want more of this.

Mathras - Sociedades secretas (2019)

Country: Argentina
Style: Heavy Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 1 Jan 2019
Sites: Facebook | | Metal Archives | Official Website | YouTube

I hadn't heard of Mathras before now, but they're from Buenos Aires and they're not bad at all. All the musicians have been together since 2008, with Ariel Varas joining them on vocals in 2013, so it's not surprising that they're tight instrumentally. This is their third album, after a self-titled release in 2009 and a 2015 album called Alquimia.

As you might expect for an Argentinean band, they sing in Spanish and I haven't picked up enough of that yet to figure out what they're singing about. I do know enough to see that the album name translates to Secret Societies and the cover art has some medical connotations to it, but the track names are rather general: After March, Walking in the Dark, Sisterhood, Awake, Clarity, etc.

What I do know is that they play heavy metal in the traditional style. If it wasn't for the clean 21st century production, the crunchy bass and the unmistakably modern drums, this could be mistaken for an eighties album. They've played on bills with Saxon, Raven and Virgin Steele, none of which are out of place at all. They're faster than Saxon and more melodic than Raven, but the style fits well.

That style is interesting, especially on diverse tracks like Claridad, the first real standout on the album. It begins like a downtuned ballad, then escalates the underlying doom vibe with clean operatic vocals and hanging guitar lines that are really tasty, but ratches it up at points as if it wants to play speed doom. Varas is clearly influenced by some of the bigger names in the genre like Ronnie James Dio, Graham Bonnet and Bruce Dickinson, but there's certainly some Messiah Marcolin in there too. Ritual does some of this too, shifting tempos and styles almost as fast as we can keep up.

Instrumentally, the influences are all over the map. I just referenced Candlemass, so it seems odd to suggest that the most overt one to me is Rainbow, albeit in an intriguing cross between the Dio and Bonnet eras. What's weird is that, on tracks that remind me of Bonnet, they play slower and heavier than Rainbow would, but on tracks that remind me of Dio, they're faster and more biting. Caminando en la oscuridad betrays a strong NWOBHM influence, like Diamond Head with double bass, while Experimento reminds of early Metal Church, down to the overlaid vocal section. Both Despierta and Ritual are faster paced, with the latter adding some rapid harmonic play. Nuestro valor and the album's closer, La maldita máquina de matar, mix slow power chord backing with heartfelt vocals for a real impact.

There are instrumentals too, though Mateo 10:16 and Carta magna really couldn't be more different. The former is a peaceful interlude (featuring a bubbly baby on guest vocals, believe it or not) that's presumably named for the Bible verse which reads "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." The latter, though, is a gloriously patient exercise in melodic power. Maybe one is representing sheep and one wolves, with the two wrapping around Ritual. Without knowing the lyrics, I can only guess.

What that leaves is an album that feels old school, rooted in a lot of different sounds from the early eighties, but with good production values of which bands then could only have dreamed and combinations that would never have happened back then. It's easy to listen to but it rewards exploration too. I like.