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Ufesas, Ufesas: My Kingdom for Some Harp!

She's frowning because there's no harmonica on this record.Somebody get Eric from Five Horse Johnson on the phone, because in all my days of recklessly casting opinions onto the hard work of others, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a band who needed a harmonica as badly as does Ufesas from Uruguay. On last year’s self-titled EP, released via Skittlebrau/Folie ? Deux Records, the five-piece runs through a four track set of dirty garage blues, and though the guitars howl and echo and puff their boozy breath all over your girlfriend while she’s standing right next to you at the show, the shrill sound of a mouth harp is all the more conspicuous for its absence.

Opener “The Destroyer” might be the most “stoner rock” of the bunch, with a riff that shuffles along accompanied by thick bass and swaggering, slurred vocals. A bit faster than the hungover “Barely Alive” which immediately follows it, there are no shortage of parallels to Nebula aping Zeppelin. “Barely Alive” is the longest of the pack at 6:19 and is the musical equivalent of rolling out of bed only to have the daylight smash you with a headache while you try and remember where you are and how you got there. Only difference is it rocks. Hangovers, not so much.

The shouty “Goin’ to the Mountain” sounds live and vibrant, and short acoustic closer “Keep Me Away” comes on as a surprise from Ufesas, who up till then had been content with rocking out classic rock style. The vibe is like a snide, GNR Lies kind of feeling, minus the racial slurs, and the blues keeps up right to the end. The EP may be a quick one — all told it’s well under 20 minutes long — but if nothing else, consider it notice that time spent checking Ufesas out on MySpace (or whatever your preferred method of online investigation may be) is time spent in a worthwhile endeavor. They’re not going to change the face of international stoner rock, but these four songs are cool enough to keep my beers cold, and that’s good enough for me, even if they could use a harmonica.

Which they could.

There may be four, there may be five people in Ufesas. Mystery for the ages. (Photo by Arri)Ufesas on MySpace

Skittlebrau Records

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3 Responses to “Ufesas, Ufesas: My Kingdom for Some Harp!”

  1. DamagedMike says:

    Fuckin? Sweet! Thank you so much for writing a (kick ass) review of this. I?m going to forward a link to it along to the band and the dude from Skittlebrau who sent me the extra copy of the CD you ultimately ended up with. I?m happy you enjoyed it.

    Have you received you copy of Rescue Rangers yet? I did. I?m still taking it in.

    What you need now is a review of The Black Pyramids full-length debut for Meteor City.

    Rock on.

    Mike

  2. Nad says:

    Long live Ufesas!

  3. Ismael Vi?oly says:

    Ufesas will rock you !!!

    (castellano)

    Ufesas te rockear?!!!

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