Already on their first LP, Buenos Aires-based four-piece Montenegro have hit on an interesting sonic blend. Taking elements from desert rock, surf, spaghetti west and South American folk, the heavy rockers start out with a leg up on Confusos Recuerdos Después del Coma (Sick-o-Delic Records), comprised of four relatively extended tracks totaling about 35 minutes. The shortest of them, the mostly-instrumental “Soluciones,” might be the most interesting of the bunch, with guitarist Gonzalo Rubio García inserting driving leads between alternately funky and driving riffs, choppy-waters surf and finally rolling grooves topped by vocalist Agustin Girolami, but even on the opening “Ideario,” Montenegro distinguish themselves within the range of post-Los Natas Argentinian heavy.

Feedback buzz starts the song, but soon the low rumble of bassist Luciano Marchisio comes on and is an immediate tonal argument in the band’s favor. Marchisio sets up the central figure that soon enough drummer Santiago Lago and García join, the latter adding space echoes to the wavy progression, giving a nod to slow space that also shows up later in the noisy midsection of closer “Santa Cruz.” A jammy feeling is built and maintained through the course of “Ideario,” and when Girolami adds words to the vibing, his voice sounds high and dry in the mix above the instruments, but in an airier section that follows as they near six minutes into the track the balance is better, and by the time they get to the whoops and shouts on “Soluciones,” it’s hardly an issue at all.

Indeed, on the 10-minute third cut, “Tiempo Fractal,” I’d argue the vocals go a long way in making the song, finally providing an answer to what Yawning Man might’ve sounded like had they ever hired a singer, guitars tripping out over strong rhythms and snare march from Lago to setup Girolami‘s entry point, which is met with Delmar-style smoothness following speech either spoken or sampled, Marchisio having thickened out the groove for a call and response that leads to a heavier rush as Montenegro head toward seven minutes in the development of what’s basically been one part. García gives his delay pedal a workout, but winds up with a memorable instrumental hook anyway, and though the vocals are high in the mix toward the end once again, the positive impression has already been made.

Closer “Santa Cruz” uses spoken vocals as well, amid dueling bass and guitar wah swirl and nestles into an solid lead-led groove lent personality by Lago‘s sleepy crash work before breaking down nearly to silence to set the foundation for Confusos Recuerdos Después del Coma‘s final build. Here too the guitar is at the fore, but at 5:41, Marchisio introduces a more foreboding line, and the guitar soon returns to top it with dense fuzz and open-spaces leads atop steady drum thud. Girolami‘s work is done, but the instruments do a more than solid job of carrying Montenegro‘s debut to its finish, surprisingly peaceful despite some moments of chaos within.

It will be interesting to see how Montenegro endeavor to work in some of the variety of influence they show on “Soluciones” in with the desert rock and heavy psych aspects of their sound going forward — if indeed they decide that’s to be their project — but already on Confusos Recuerdos Después del Coma they have a strong sense of aesthetic that’s met with warm tones and engaging grooves. The album is available for free download at the Montenegro Bandcamp, from whence the following player was also hoisted:

Montenegro, Confusos Recuerdos Después del Coma (2013)

Montenegro on Bandcamp

Montenegro on Thee Facebooks

So here’s an awkward moment for you: I was standing in back of The Purple Turtle at last year’s Desertfest in London, chatting with a couple of the rather sizable film and promotional crew that Cultura Tres brought with them from their native Venezuela (actually they were in Banda de la Muerte, from Argentina, and touring with the band, but I’m creating a narrative, so bear with me here) for the gig and their subsequent touring. Also there was their manager, Vania, in town from Bulgaria. Quite an international assemblage we made. One of the dudes along with Cultura Tres starts taking CDs out of a bag. Thinking he’s setting up a distro with a pile of CDs on the merch table, I’m immediately stoked out of my brains to see the cover above for what has turned out to be Los Natas‘ swan song release, 2011′s Rutation — an album that wasn’t released outside Argentina and one that at that point I’d already been trying for the better part of a year to get my grubby mitts upon.

“Holy shit!” I said with my usual amount of play-it-cool subtlety, “I’ll take that one.” Dude gave me the “uh…” look and some pitying soul explained to me they weren’t selling those, they’d just brought them from South America for Vania. Feeling as much the fool as ever, I explained the trouble I’d had trying to sort out an encounter between myself and Rutation, which Los Natas released through their own South American Sludge imprint and eventually skulked away to down my weirdness in oversized Newcastles and take pictures of Cultura Tres, who were shooting footage for what would later become their “El Sur de la Fe” video. One of those times where I just have to hang my head and go, “Boy, is my face dumb.”

Actually seeing the disc had the effect of supercharging my search, but to no avail. I tried Oui Oui Records in Argentina, which has distributed Los Natas‘ stuff in their home country since 2003′s Bee Jesus box set a decade ago, as well as a bevvy of worldwide distros North American, South American and European, eBay, Amazon sites from around the globe, etc. At this point, not to toot my own horn, but if I want to find a CD chances are I know where to look. Rutation did not want to be found.

I wouldn’t say I gave up on it, because I have many late-night eBay searches that would indicate otherwise, but it became apparent to me that Rutation was just one of those records I’d have to wait until it found me, rather than the other way around. Sorry, but if I can get a copy of Colour Haze‘s Chopping Machine (and I did), nothing’s totally unattainable, it just needs time. I waited for my time, and lo, right around the Xmas holiday a note comes in on Thee Facebooks from none other than Vania that she’s got a copy of the album for me.

Bless my miserable soul. I felt like I was waiting to adopt a puppy while I stood in line at the post office to pick up the package, sent from Bulgaria (for some reason Eastern European packages always require a signature). My stomach was tight with apprehension, but when I finally got the envelope and opened it, there was the disc. I swear to Robot Jesus there was a glow around it, and maybe it was leftover Xmas music, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t hear a choir singing. It went in the CD player before I even turned the car on, like it would play anyway before I turned the key. Some things just become an immediate priority.

In my reading about the album beforehand, I knew the recordings themselves were old. Rutation was put to tape on a mobile unit in Buenos Aires in 1997, so it would’ve been after Delmar was recorded but before Ciudad de Brahman — well into the time when they were still Natas, before the Los was added — the very heart of their most desert rocking period. Some of these tracks showed up on 1999′s Unreleased Dopes, and according to some sales I’ve seen on eBay, the band had cassettes of Rutation with them when they toured the States in 2000, but the 2011 issue is the first official CD release that I know of, and I couldn’t have been more stoked to finally get to hear it.

Most of the tracks can be traced in different incarnations to Delmar or Ciudad de Brahman. Cuts like “Carl Sagan” and “Meteoro 2028,” arranged here as a desert-delic closing duo, and “Alohawaii” were excellent on the latter record and prove so again here, but the highlight of Rutation somewhat surprisingly is “Adolescentes,” a track I’d never really given much of a second glance on Ciudad, but which shines surrounded by “Siluette” (which I’ve yet to trace to another Natas release) and “Brisa del Desierto,” leading to the aforementioned closers. When they want to, Natas lock into fuzz riffing unrivaled in my experience, and you can hear that in “Polvareda,” but the airier parts of “Paradise” show that even at their rawest, there was room in the band’s approach for more than just riff-led Kyuss-isms.

All told, Rutation is just over 31 minutes long, but it still shows the character of what was then a young trio, and for the kindness of the gesture on Vania‘s part that got the disc from South America to Eastern Europe to New Jersey, I just had to write on it. It’s a gift I know I’ll appreciate for years to come, and if Los Natas really are done, then I consider myself all the more fortunate to have been able to get a copy of their last statement as a band.

Of all the ways to possibly start off this week, somehow a full set makes the most sense, and the way this this pro-shot 49-minute Ararat gig from earlier this year lurches to life only reminds me of the slow ascent into consciousness I made not so terribly long ago, pulled ahead as I tried to resist by the digitized chime of the alarm clock. They do four songs in their allotted time: “Caballos,” “Lobos de Guerra y Cazadores de Elefantes,” “La Ira del Dragon (Parte 1),” and the new cut “Nicotina y Destruccion” that will presumably be out on their third album next year.

Actually, if you want to dig into that song further — and why not? — there’s a demo the band posted on Sergio Chotsourian‘s often and quietly updated Soundcloud page:

One more thing to look forward to in 2013. At some point I’ll get a list of those up before the New Year. I’ve got my notes in progress right here on my desk next to my Top 20 of 2012 list, which currently has 26 acts on it. I’ll work on whittling that down and hope to post it sometime before this week is out. I’m thinking tomorrow, but don’t want to lock myself into anything since time’s short these days however quiet things are supposed to be in the music industry around the holidays. Doom never sleeps.

In the meantime, I’ve got a new column from Chris “Woody” MacDermott that will be posted shortly, and a review of the Serpent Throne, EYE and Randall of Nazareth gig I saw Friday night in Philly. If you’ve sent me an email in the last week or so, I apologize for the delay in getting back. And that’s not just “hey here’s my Bandcamp it took me 30 seconds to write this email now go spend seven hours reviewing it”-type emails either. It’s friends. I hope to catch up on that today as well and spend some time preparing for an interview tomorrow with guitarist Arthur Seay of Unida/House of Broken Promises about what’s going on with his bands, Unida headlining both Desertfests, and so on. Dude seems to pretty much have life figured out. Maybe I’ll ask him what that feels like.

Oh, the drama.

If you’ve been keeping up with The Obelisk Radio, then you probably already saw that in the last week or so, another 200-plus albums have gone up. There’s some genuine classics in there, from C.O.C. to Earthride to Neurosis, and I’ve tried to mix in some new bands and obscure stuff as well to keep in the original K666 spirit. I hope you’ve had the chance to listen and if you have, hope you’ve dug it. Like everything else around here, that’s a work in progress, but it’s getting there.

Time to buckle down and start the week. Whatever you’ve got on your to-do list, I hope you complete it quickly and can move about as you will for the remainder of the day, and while doing so, I hope you’ll keep things in mind like the forum and the radio station as effective and enjoyable ways to pass the time. For the time being, I’m gonna finish out watching this Ararat set, grab a second cup of coffee and see if I can’t trick my brain into starting up. Here we go.

Thought we’d do something a little different to close out this week. For my money, Natas‘ Delmar is probably the best album Man’s Ruin Records ever put out, and not to take away from what Kyuss accomplished — you could easily argue records like this wouldn’t exist without them and I don’t think you’d be wrong — but there have been many times where it’s one or the other and I wind up pulling Natas off the shelf instead. A full 16 years after its release, it remains gorgeous and has lost none of its potency.

The Patient Mrs. and I are in Boston for the weekend, which seems even farther away from the desert as I look out the hotel window and see it’s snowing, but I brought Delmar along for the ride and so it’s on my mind. No big change there, since it’s on the shortlist of my favorite albums ever, but with a couple listens through yesterday in the car, I figured another wouldn’t hurt. Still burns me that I haven’t been able to get ahold of the last Los Natas full-length, Rutation, that they released last year. With the band broken up though, what seems like distro only in their native Argentina and guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian moved on to the heavier but continually righteous Ararat — their second album, II (review here), has endured as one of this year’s finest — it doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon. Hopefully I’ll bump into it somewhere along the way.

A bit about being in Boston: I’m moving here. Well, not here exactly, but about 45 minutes south to or near a town called Bridgewater. My brilliant wife — whose smokin’ hotness is matched only by her devastating intellectual prowess — got a professor’s gig at a college down that way that starts next fall, and as this weekend was likely to be my last opportunity to see the place before the holidays hit and the usual chaos erupted, here we are. We’ll drive down there in a bit and the basic idea is to check out the scene ahead of making the move sometime next summer, though apparently there’s a house on the market with an outdoor bar, which is about as close as I’ve ever heard to paradise.

That’s the reason for the delay on the review of the High on Fire/Goatwhore/Primate/Lo-Pan show, which otherwise would’ve gone up yesterday. I also saw Six Organs of Admittance last night up here, figuring they rule and if I’m gonna be here I’d better start getting out to stuff. Both of those reviews will go up early next week, and as I’ve lagged on album writeups lately, I might see if I can do two one day or something like that. I also still need to get that Bell Witch interview up, which I said I’d do this week and then never did. A bit of upheaval over here, and more time than I thought got taken up by adding to The Obelisk Radio. If you click that link and notice albums haven’t been added for two days, it’s only because — whoops — I filled the hard drive. My intent is to pick up a couple terabytes this weekend and get back to it as this week starts up, Monday or Tuesday.

Speaking of Monday, it’s December now, which means time to start the readers poll to find out everyone’s picks for the best albums of the year. Last year’s poll was good times and I’ve been looking forward to seeing what records stood out to everybody. My own list I’ll probably put up somewhere in the middle of the month — just when everyone’s really sick to death of self-important critics’ top 10s and 20s — and I know there are some tough choices in terms of deciding what’s to be included and in what order. It’s been a pretty wild year.

And as it starts to wind down, I hope as always that you enjoy what I’m doing with this site, that you dig the Natas, that you check in on the forum, take a listen to the Obelisk Radio stream and check back here for that High on Fire review, readers poll launch and much more. The one thing that never seems to be lacking is adventure. I’ll take that.

Have a great weekend.

Information on the band is relatively sparse, but Todo el Odio del Unicornio… is the self-released debut full-length from Santa Fe, Argentina, desert rock trio Samurai. It arrives with nine component tracks that run a 45-minute course of sandy-dune familiarity, nodding at the heady jams of countrymen Los Natas’ earlier work and in turn that band’s own stylistic forebears in Kyuss, and where likeminded next gen rockers Humo del Cairo took roughly the same style and pushed it into fuller-toned sonic realms on their second record, Samurai seem content to relish in a natural-sounding humility. The fuzz in Vincente Armando’s guitar does much of the talking when it comes to the central ethics of Todo el Odio del Unicornio…, a song like second track “Cassablanca” seems to stack its layers of psyched-out leads one on top of the next. On the whole, the work is derivative, but not without its charm and by no means poorly made. Argentina has a number of heavy psych acts somewhat less definitively stonerized, and their blatant, still clearly developing take on the style is part of what gives these songs their edge. Production is minimally invasive, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Samurai, which is Armando on guitar/vocals alongside bassist David Ezqueil and drummer Santiago Montruchio, recorded live (if they did; like I said, info is sparse), such is the extent to which the instrumentation especially does the work of conveying a human feel. Ezquiel’s bass could be louder in the mix, but I’m a sucker for bass on this kind of recording, so take that with a grain of salt – in any case, Samurai’s debut is not lacking for low end warmth, whether it’s Armando’s own in the guitar or the periodic thud of Montruchio’s floor tom and steady kick drum.

And there’s something to be said, especially in desert rock, for faithful recreation of what’s been done before. Opener “Moto” starts out with a riff that for a second seems to hint at Saint Vitus’ “I Bleed Black” before setting the course that most of the rest of Todo el Odio del Unicornio… will follow – namely that of straightforward riffing and intriguing, driving rhythms. Armando’s vocals are well-mixed semi-melodic shouts that seem at times to be consumed by the relative swell of the music surrounding. Like a lot of the record, that’s done right for what the band is trying to achieve. Samurai are pretty clearly familiar with the style they’re engaging, and they still manage to inject some personality of their own into what they play, so the likes of “Moto,” “Cassablanca” and “La Tradición de la Sonrisa” – which follows in more directly Natas-derived form – give a fair impression. Breaking the album into thirds, the first three tracks of Todo el Odio del Unicornio… comprise the longest, the 17-minutes seemingly meant to envelop or engross the listener, zoning them out as the rest of the record builds on what’s already established. It’s a solid ethic, and again, Samurai aren’t the first to employ it, but they do so well, and as “Más Rápido” takes hold from “La Tradición de la Sonrisa,” I find I’m more willing to go along with its motor-rocking push than I might be had I not already been lulled by the 12-minute opening duo particularly. This skillful structuring plays out across the CD – centerpiece ‘The Masters” fittingly placed as one of the most memorable cuts – and proves to be a major factor in the band’s potential, showing they’re not just riffing out and letting the rest fall together as it may (admirable as that ethic is sometimes) but instead consciously thinking about what they want their debut to be.

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Among the many things for which I’m a total sucker, a good poster definitely ranks. The below doodle, for a show Humo del Cairo and Poseidótica are playing together in Buenos Aires (unfortunately just a bit too far for me to get out and review it) on May 25, easily fits that bill. If my — and by my I mean Google’s — translation skills are to be trusted, this gig at the Niceto Club is serving as Humo del Cairo‘s CD release for their second album (review here), and the first 50 people through the door get a free poster.

Don’t quote me on that, because I’m way more of a sucker for a cool poster than I am, uh, able to read Spanish. More info on the show is available on Humo del Cairo‘s Thee Facebooks page, or the event page. Here’s that poster:

Reminds a bit of the cover to Earth‘s The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, though maybe that’s just a profile-of-an-animal-skull coincidence. Should be a good show either way, if you happen to find yourself in Buenos Aires. In case you don’t recall Poseidótica‘s Crónicas del Futuro, it’s reviewed here.

I seem to recall being in touch with Nasoni Records at one point in my life and reviewing their stuff, but these days, any chance I get to buy Nasoni releases at non-import prices is both a rarity a boon. As I perused the Exile on Mainstream merch area at a certain European fest in the Netherlands a couple weeks back that I think I may have already mentioned once or twice, I was able to pick up a few Nasoni discs without thinking twice, and one of them was the 2010 sophomore outing from Peru/Argentina heavy psych trio Tlön.

Called simply Tlön II, it’s a record that makes its bed on organic low-end warmth. Tlön was founded by drummer Walo Carillo, who was a member of early ’70s curios Tarkus, and so they come by the heavy rocking traditionalism honestly. Joined by Marcus Coifman of Reino Ermitano on bass and principal songwriter Christian Van Lacke on vocals and guitar, Carillo dutifully marches into echoing caverns of groove. Van Lacke is occasionally given to a classic falsetto as on opener “El Banquete De Los Niños” or the acoustic-led later cut “Ave Azul,” and it adds an oddly mystical element to his songwriting, but is never fully cartoonish. It’s just one more way in which Tlön present their ethereality.

The band take their name from the noun-less fictional world in the 1940 short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, and sure enough, Tlön II has an otherworldly feel to it. Its 10 songs vary some in mood, but all are presented as though from a distance, and even the doomed pacing of “El Día Aquel” or the crunch in Van Lacke‘s intro riff for closer “50 Siglos” seem beamed in from a sonic elsewhere. I don’t really have a full grasp on the vibe as yet — my sense is that to get one would take more than a little while — but it’s a record I’ve been digging since I first put it on, so I thought maybe I’d recommend it to anyone else who might be interested.

Tlön have two other albums to date: a 2009 self-titled debut and this year’s apparently-vinyl-only Tlön III, both on Nasoni, so if you’re up for it, there’s a bit of investigation to do. To get you started, the band have a track from each record on their Bandcamp, and the label’s site has notes about each release, including the different and varying limited editions of the LP versions, should you want to go all out. If you don’t feel like clicking off, here’s the live version of the band doing “El Día Aquel” in 2010:

In the two-plus years since Los Natas guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian made his debut with Ararat, a lot has changed. Long story short, Ararat has become a band and Los Natas – for all intents and purposes – has stopped being one. While the self-titled Ararat debut (review here), which was released in the US by MeteorCity and in Chotsourian’s native Argentina on Oui Oui Records, was essentially a solo-project on which Sergio was joined by a few friends and his brother, pianist Santiago Chotsourian, and which sought to bridge the musical gaps between Middle Eastern and Latin American cultural and musical influences, Ararat II, or simply II, follows a much more rounded course. Both Chotsourian brothers return, with Sergio once more handling guitar, bass, vocals and piano while Santiago also contributes piano, and Alfredo Felitte of Banda de la Muerte has taken over on drums for material that’s more aligned to fuzzy groove than any specific cultural modus – though those elements certainly show up as well. II, however, is less outwardly experimental than was its foot-getting predecessor, with Chotsourian’s bass (he plays bass live, while Tito Fargo of Sumo handles slide guitar and noise) taking much of the fore instrumentally on heavier songs like the lumbering “Lobos de Guerra y Cazadores de Elefantes” or the psychedelically ranging low-end bliss of “Caballos.” It’s still pretty clear Sergio is driving these songs, and II, released by Elektrohasch on CD and LP, has its commitment to variety in common with the 2009 self-titled that came before it, but where that album drew a direct line to – and in fact shared a few tracks with – Los Natas’ excellent Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (review here), the second Ararat outing feels more bent on standing on its own than being allied to any of Chotsourian’s past work.

It’s a darker atmosphere overall than was the first album, doomier in more than just Chotsourian’s bass tone, but if the sophomore Ararat proves anything, it’s that the personality of the band is still developing. Each side of II centers itself around an extended, highly atmospheric and massively heavy single track. Side A seems bent on serving the will of “Caballos” (16:20) and Side B counters with “La Ira del Dragon (Uno)” (15:48). Not that the material surrounding doesn’t have substance – the album opens with perhaps its most experimental moment in “El Carro”’s blend of acoustics, electrics and what sounds like flute – but those two songs are impossible to ignore as the focal points or landmarks around which the rest of the album’s total seven tracks are working. “Atenas” and the closing “Tres de Mayo” are piano-led pieces of significant length – 6:34 and 4:49, respectively – and atmosphere, and even the shortest cut, the acoustic CD-centerpiece “El Inmigrante,” is granted weight through Chotsourian’s echoing vocals and bluesy lead. The real anomaly of the bunch, then, is “Lobos de Guerra y Cazadores de Elefantes,” which, though far from being a misstep of any kind with its start-stop bass riff, huge-sounding tone, undeniable groove and Felitte’s locked in cymbal work, doesn’t fit the pattern. It’s somewhat faster than “Caballos” preceding, and more straightforward where “Caballos” patiently unfolds its build and makes sure its synth ambience matches the nod-worthy doomed lurching, but to pick one over the other is hard and, honestly, not worth the effort without a gun to the head. And if its inclusion on II makes the album that much more complex and harder to classify or dissect, well, that also makes it more fascinating to listen.

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While it rested its strength in laid back desert atmospherics, the 2010 self-titled debut album from Buenos Aires rockers Humo del Cairo (review here) was more a show of potential than a distinguishing statement. It made the trio a band to watch. The quick-arriving follow-up, Vol. II (Estamos Felices), validates that anticipation. Humo del Cairo – guitarist/vocalist Juan Manuel Diaz, bassist Gustavo Bianchi and new drummer Federico Castrogiovanni – have stripped down their approach to the most necessary parts and presented a well-structured collection of songs that work as well individually as they do grouped together. It’s a rare balance, but Vol. II hits it, and where the self-titled had material that (purposefully) meandered into heavy jamming like the 11-minute “A Tiempo,” the longest song on Vol. II doesn’t quite hit seven minutes and is among the more direct and explicitly memorable riffs on the record. That the trio should be able to so quickly shift their approach between releases may or may not be a surprise – one never knows how long it’s been since the songs for the first record were written unless one asks, and I haven’t (yet) – but the confidence Humo del Cairo bring to their performance here and the sonic breadth they manage to cover while still maintaining relatively straightforward verse/chorus structures speaks to a distinct progression that’s admirable no matter the time span it happened over. Some bands don’t grow this much over the course of three albums, let alone one.

They operate in a variety of moods and still have wind up inevitably comparable to hometown stalwarts Los Natas at times, but by and large, Humo del Cairo’s riffing has gotten thicker and tighter. Diaz and Bianchi’s tones are rich on opening duo “Fe” and “Los Ojos,” and even later on the instrumental layering interlude “Monte,” they seem to retain a character of increasing individuality. If every album has a narrative to it – and most do – then that of Vol. II is one of Humo del Cairo beginning to come into their own stylistically. Heavy rock is at the core of every move they make, and they weave in and out of stonerly atmospheres, but Vol. II is striking in terms of the variety of mood it presents and how well the songs work together. There are 11 tracks, and each justifies its inclusion by standing out in one way or another, be it a particularly engaging riff, a memorable vocal melody (all the lyrics are in Spanish), or in the case of “Fe,” an overall largess of tone that sets the course for the album as a whole. Castrogiovanni distinguishes himself right away with a heavy thud amidst the formidable rumble of Bianchi’s bass, and Diaz places an echoing vocal far back in the mix initially, bringing it up toward the end as a setup for the more straight-ahead drive of “Los Ojos.” He’s almost certainly double-tracked his singing, but neither the vocals nor the music surrounding are lacking for a natural feel; the fuzz Humo del Cairo emit is as organic as one could possibly ask without sacrificing clarity.

As catchy and uptempo as “Los Ojos” is, with Castrogiovanni setting a “follow the bouncing ball” snare beat and sticking by it, it’s “Tierra del Rey” that serves as the first real highlight of Vol. II, and really, it’s all about the riff. Immediate stoner nod meets with rawer vocals and massive groove – a classic formula given new life by the fervency with which it’s executed. Diaz takes a guitar solo following the second verse, and that leads to a kind of mini-jam for the next minute-plus, but the main riff takes hold again and opens into as classic a part as there is within the genre of stoner rock. Subtle lead notes pepper an encompassing riff and Diaz meters his vocals to match the rhythm as Bianchi and Castrogiovanni lock down the march under the ensuing guitar solo. There are several genuine triumphs on Vol. II – among them the more ambient shift that “El Alba (parte A)” and “El Alba (parte B)” bring about immediately afterward – but “Tierra Del Rey” might be the most potent of them. The comedown that follows feels entirely earned, and the less distorted, higher-register notes of “El Alba (parte A)” both allow time to process “Tierra del Rey” and shift the focus to more atmospheric songwriting. The song picks up, riff-wise, and leads directly into “El Alba (parte B)” as the titles would suggest, but it seems reasonable that Humo del Cairo would split the whole into two component tracks, given how well the second of them stands up as a single, particularly in terms of its chorus. It’s more than a minute before Diaz comes in on vocals, but when he does, he brings appropriate gravity and layers of backups only further the character of the song, which is perhaps the most directly comparable to Los Natas’ melodic methodology as Vol. II gets until the heaviness is cut short and an acoustic guitar concludes the last minute and a half.

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Not really much of a surprise that Argentinian riffly rockers Humo del Cairo would have a new video out, what with their new album, but what’s kind of “huh?”-inducing about the situation is that “Fuego de San Antonio” appeared on the first record — not the new one. Far be it from me to criticize (get it?), but it seems to make more sense to me to promote the newer release, which is appropriately called Vol. II, than the debut, righteous though it was.

But maybe that’s why I’ve never been in a killer Argentinian desert rock trio (that’s what’s been holding me back!). Either way, Humo del Cairo‘s video for “Fuego de San Antonio”– directed by Juan Pinnel — is available for viewing below. Hope you dig:

Humo del Cairo‘s Vol. II reportedly came out in October as was planned, though I can’t seem to find any info on how to obtain it. In the meantime, the band has made the new song “Tierra del Rey” available for streaming on Soundcloud, and you can hear it on this player:

I thought we’d end this week with a clip from Los Natas, because over the course of the last week, the mainstay Argentinian heavy rockers have re-uploaded a boat-load of their videos to the Tubes of You. Check out their channel here, if you’re so inclined. The video above is for the song “Patas de Elefante,” which comes from the ridiculously underrated Corsario Negro from 2002.

It’s not what I most often reach for when I’m grabbing Los Natas off the shelf — that’s probably Delmar, the debut — but I look at Corsario Negro in the context of what the band’s done since as a great transitional record. It’s like Dozer‘s Call it Conspiracy (coincidentally released the same year) in that it showed the band as having mastered the form of their earliest work even as they began to progress beyond it. Anyway, I’m a dork for Los Natas, so I hope you enjoy the video.

Tonight I went and saw Judas Priest on their “Epitaph” farewell tour at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It was the biggest concert I’d seen (in terms of crowd-size) in I don’t even know how long. I may write it up Monday or I may just post some pics I took — I scammed my way into a photo pass — and leave it at that. Either way, the show was killer and I’ll have something on it come Monday.

Also next week, stay tuned for a by-request stream of some of Electric Moon‘s heady psych jamming, and before the Thanksgiving holiday, I’ll also have some audio from the HeavyPink 7″, as I’ve heard from a couple people at this point saying they’d like to hear how the tunes came out before investing $11 to buy a copy. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, so sometime shortly I’ll have some sounds from that up.

I didn’t get to post my Elder interview this week, which was disappointing, so I’ll try to have that as soon as I can, and Wiht sent back their Six Dumb Questions Q&A, so I should be able to get that up as well. It is Thanksgiving though, and I’ll be in Connecticut to celebrate with my wife’s family, so I’m thinking about swinging down to Redscroll Records for their Black Friday earlybird sale. I think it’s at 6AM or something like that. Could be fun, but a lot depends on where the evening and the wine take me.

Beyond that, stick around for reviews of VRSA and Cathedral and as many more as I can fit. As always, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll be spending mine doing homework, so you can pretty much expect I’ll spend significant amounts of time dicking around on the forum. Hope to see you there and back here Monday for more adventure.

Fierce in its commitment to progressive atmospheres, the space-hued third album from Argentinean instrumentalists Poseidótica, Crónicas del Futuro, doesn’t linger on its ideas and varies widely from track to track, but is able to manifest an overall sensibility as well. The four-piece of guitarists Hernán Miceli and Santiago Rúa, bassist Martín Rodríguez and drummer Walter Broide (also of Los Natas) is joined on Crónicas del Futuro by synth expert Ernesto Romeo, who adds much of the space rock feel to the already semi-psychedelic riff-led material. Swirls and ambient noises enhance the mood of songs like opener “Elevación” and some of the shorter pieces on the album like “Otra Fuga Incierta” and the closer “Alunizar,” but between these cuts – which are more substantial content-wise than interludes, if not much longer – Poseidótica confront mostly guitar-led material that varies in terms of structure and execution and never really feels like it’s missing anything for the lack of vocals. “Elevación” is the longest work at 5:18 (immediate points for it being the opener and longest track) and sets the expectations high for what’s to come over the subsequent eight songs. Given the current climate in South American underground heavy rock, one might expect an instrumental unit like Poseidótica to engage in lengthy jams or put their focus on fuzzy tones and thickened bass, but that’s not what’s happening on Crónicas del Futuro. Rodríguez does an excellent job helming the jazzy sway of “Los Extraños,” but the album winds up being diverse enough that its head is never committed wholly to anything other than the band’s own creative will, which proves considerable.

As such, there are various influences that show up throughout the album. One can hear a bit of the last Los Natas in the forward momentum of “La Resistencia,” and “Cyberpunk,” at just 1:11, has a thrust that lives up to its name. However, partnered next to the calmer or at least not as rushed “Xantanax,” it shows the kind of diversity from which Crónicas del Futuro gets its flow. As Miceli and Rúa lead the second half of “Xantanax” away from its Latin rhythms with classic heavy metal riffing, the proposition becomes even more complex. It’s the record’s great achievement that Poseidótica are able to make it coalesce into an engaging whole. With instrumental music that doesn’t have vocals to guide a structure – and all the more so with artists who have a progressive bent – it’s too easy to get sidetracked into self-indulgence, and that’s not what’s happening here. Although Romeo’s contributions lead to sweeping passages of atmospherics, nothing lasts so long as to really feel overdone, and that includes the opener, where the elements of the band’s sound are perhaps best combined. Where “La Resistencia” leans more on the guitar and “Otra Fuga Incierta” seems to roll off of Rodríguez’s bass line, “Elevación” brings everything together in a way that even “Dimensión Vulcano” – which is arguably the most prog rock of the tracks included on Crónicas del Futuro – doesn’t. That’s not to say the rest of the album doesn’t live up to what’s initially promised, just that one imagines that when it came to structuring the tracklist, “Elevación” was put at the head because it introduced the new ideas Poseidótica were gearing toward that perhaps didn’t show up on their past offerings, 2008’s La Distancia and 2005’s Intramundo (both also Aquatalan). Again, the variety of influence here plays into a different kind of satisfaction than would be if the band made everything sound just like first cut.

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Though the clip above of Los Natas guitarist/vocalist Sergio Chotsourian‘s side-project Ararat doing the new song “Caballos” rules, spliced with ’70s film footage and in high definition and quality sound as it is, it’s really just there because I couldn’t imagine putting up a Frydee post without a video at the top. The real reason I wanted to close out this week with Ararat is to post the studio version of the same song, which Chotsourian put on Soundcloud last night. Check it out:

The gorgeous psychedelic groove, synth undertones and riffy plod of it all bode very well for the follow-up to Ararat‘s 2009 debut, Musica de la Resistencia (MeteorCity). According to Chotsourian‘s Soundcloud info, the 16-minute track is serving as a preview for the next album, which will be called Ararat II and will be released on Elektrohasch Schallplatten before the end of the year. It’s a nice thought, and though early 2012 seems more likely — and if “Caballos” is any indication — it will hopefully build on the adventurous spirit of the debut, whenever it’s out.

Hope you enjoy the track, in either incarnation. If you listen to the studio version, make sure you stick around for the bass part a little after 13 minutes in. It’s killer.

And speaking of sticking around, next week I’ll have reviews of The Wounded Kings, Elder, Sandrider, Beastwars and Wiht, my interview with CT from Rwake (I’ll transcribe it if it kills me — and at an hour long, it might), new music from Lonely Kamel and the aforementioned Sandrider, plus September’s numbers and a lot more. The semester has picked back up and between that and work, I’m all kinds of busy, but since most days it’s The Obelisk keeping me sane, I’m not about to let it go neglected. Hence the 1AM Frydee post. Ha.

Oh, and before I forget: Next week the HeavyPink 7″ on The Maple Forum is going to go up for pre-sale. That’ll probably be Monday night or Tuesday, so stay tuned, because you don’t want to miss out on it.

As always, I hope you have a great and safe weekend. I’ll see you on the forum and back here Monday for more of this nonsense.

At least according to the best translation Thee Googles has to offer, the second album from Argentinian heavy psych upstarts Humo del Cairo will be out Oct. 17. Their second album bears the appropriate title, Vol. II, and was recorded by Alejandro Ortiz (Carajo). No word as yet on whether or not MeteorCity will pick it up for a domestic American issue, but it’s out on Estamos Felices in time for Humo del Cairo‘s South American tour, about which you can find more info here.

The trio has posted the track “El Alba (Parte A + B)” on the Estamo Felices Soundcloud page in the meantime, and it shows some shifts from the first record. The sound is a little darker, the vocals a little lower. It should be interesting to hear how the whole record plays out when it lands. Here’s the stream of the track if you want to check it out:

I’m not really sure what my delay on this one was, but I found out a few months ago about the 2010 split between Argentinian mega-trio Los Natas and more metallic side-project Solodolor. It’s the second one the two bands have done — small wonder since they share guitarist Sergio Chotsourian in common — and with Solodolor vocalist El Topo Armetta (also Dragonauta and Eight Hands for Kali) singing on three of Los Natas‘ total seven tracks, the effect the split has is more like a family/semi-collaboration than the usual one band on this side, one on the other. Because Los Natas‘ music is so fluid tonally anyway, it works.

Solodolor get the last three tracks. The lineup of Chotsourian, El Topo, drummer Gustavo Rowek and bassist Billy Anderson (yes, that Billy Anderson) showed the same three songs on the last, vinyl-only split, so it’s basically a chance for anyone who didn’t hear them then to do so now. They’re heavier than Los Natas in the traditional metal crash and bash sort of way, more High on Fire than desert rock, but even the unhinged feel of “The Battle of Mocha Poo” meshes well with the surrounding material.

Five of the seven Los Natas songs are covers, and the hardest part about them is choosing a highlight. For original material, they do new versions of their own “Soma” from the first album and “Rutation” from the second, but with “Thumb” and “Green Machine” by Kyuss, T.S.O.L.‘s “No Time,” Danzig‘s “I Don’t Mind the Pain,” and a Spanish-language take on the all-time classic of classics, “Ace of Spades” by Motörhead — redubbed “El Ass de Espadas” — it’s the covers that win the day. And that new “Soma” rules, don’t get me wrong, but come on, Los Natas playing the opening riff of “Thumb?” Life doesn’t get much better than that.

The only drawback to the covers is that it isn’t Chotsourian singing. He still plays guitar, and he, bassist Gonzalo Villagra and drummer Walter Broide are as tight as ever instrumentally, but a host of vocalists are brought in to cover duty. El Topo was already mentioned, and he does well on the Kyuss songs and “I Don’t Mind the Pain” — which might be my pick of the bunch, depending on my mood — while Argentinian singer Boom Boom Kid makes the T.S.O.L. song work surprisingly well and Ricardo Iorio (V8) manhandles “El Ass de Espadas.” It’s pretty clear Los Natas chose friends and people they wanted to work with, and it’s hard to fault them that.

I’ll stop short here without going into full review-mode and just say that if like me you’ve waited to check out the Los Natas/Solodolor split, consider that time wasted for not having a voice in stuck your head constantly yelling “El ass de espadas! El ass de espadas!” Awesome.