Album Review: Les Nadie, Destierro y Siembra
Destierro y Siembra is not only the debut full-length from Córdoba, Argentina, duo Les Nadie, but the band’s first release of any kind as well. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Juan Codne and drummer Rodri Deladerova, the seven-song offering is low on hype and big on creativity, culling together a half-hour’s worth of material that brings a striking amount of character to largely familiar elements. Right at the outset, with the manner in which the post-Melvins roll-and-crash of lead cut “Gritó el Indio” gives way to layered ethereal howls (presumably representing the titular gritó, or cry) as it moves into its middle third, guitar effects placed overtop to add to the weirdness, turning back to the main riff soon enough before picking up the speed and shifting to a modified ending, Les Nadie signal their intention toward inventive structures and an unwillingness to play by traditional verse/chorus rules that only becomes a source of strength as the rest of the release unfolds.
Only the centerpiece “Helledén” (5:38) is longer than “Gritó el Indio” (5:35), and not by much, but quickly Les Nadie‘s work becomes as much about atmosphere, if not more, as about the riffs being played or the weight of the opener’s nod. “Zhonda” follows and begins with a more urgent pace and harder hitting drums from Deladerova, Codne‘s guitar turning from the crunch to an almost-noodling-but-not-quite succession of notes in what becomes the first real verse on Destierro y Siembra, all the more effective in the clarity of its delivery with that shimmer behind it and the fact that the band have gone about seven minutes into the offering without saying a word, despite the voice-as-instrument work on the first song. The lyrics, which translate to either a request for or a story about a wind from the south coming to bring rebirth — “Viento/Del sur viento/Baja a mi encuentro/Y resurrección” — are delivered twice through before the crunch resumes, sounding all the more grunge for the held note at the finish of the second time. The duo cycle through again before building into an early payoff of groove that gets accompanied by some howls not dissimilar from those in “Gritó el Indio,” but modified in purpose, now representing the wind itself as the song comes to its sudden end and “Siembra / Destierro,” which is as close to a title-track as Destierro y Siembra gets.
The ambience and feeling of open space in the recording, reverb on the guitar, continues in “Siembra / Destierro,” offset by a more solidified, fuzzier fluidity. Again, layering is a factor in the presentation, and as Destierro y Siembra was tracked between March 2020 and July 2021 (sounds about right) at studios in Córdoba and Catalonia, working with Manu Collado and the Lleida-based Xavi Esterri in the northern part of Spain, the fluidity of that jam comes across as well-honed, Codne‘s guitar swaying through the early procession — “Siembra,” presumably — before extending the method to the vocals of the following “Destierro,” which in their drawling, bottom-mouth layers recall the darker moments of Alice in Chains‘ Dirt over suitably heavy crashes and thuds. Thus the song ends, a final strum filling the silence before the airier, bouncing guitar figure of “Helledén” starts. After the first minute, the aforementioned centerpiece arrives at a lighthearted movement of guitar that becomes a recurring theme, balanced against jazzy jabs with vocals overtop. It is a willful contradiction of purpose that shouldn’t work but which the duo pull off readily, resolving in sweet, early Mars Red Sky rawness and melody, the guitar meandering to the end with just a flourish of cymbal wash.
As with “Zhonda” after “Gritó el Indio,” “Babas D’Allah” follows “Helledén” with a more straight-up riff, announcing itself via dense distortion before desert-hued noodling takes hold. With no more conflict than in “Helledén,” “Babas D’Allah” basks in its point and counterpoint, each change between them highlighting the differences and the unlikely flow that results as Les Nadie shift between the one and the other, the god-slobber’s 1994-ish Fu Manchu-style heavier riff seeming to find a complement in the intro to the penultimate “Del Pombero,” which starts out organic and weighted in a nod that comes through like a response to “Gritó el Indio” and that likewise builds out some of the Mars Red Sky melodicism as it breaks from the march for its verse before resuming the procession once more, a change that’s nowhere near as stark as some of those that come before it but that nonetheless finds the guitar resting to give space to the vocals, and solo lines and rhythm tracks working in layers as Codne and Deladerova summarize a good portion of what’s worked well in Destierro y Siembra — doing whatever they want, when they want to do it. Exploratory as the album may feel, there’s no questioning the confidence in Les Nadie to pull it off. And really, that and the creativity behind it in the first place is what it takes.
So, having been up, down, fast, slow, hither, yon, the desert, the beach, the garden, the boogie van and the monster truck, they end subtle and quiet with the guitar epilogue “Venenauta,” which is some reference to poison I can’t quite place translation-wise but that underscores how much of what makes Destierro y Siembra such an engaging listen across its relatively brief span comes down to the atmosphere in the material itself. There’s pastoralism, or at least a drive toward escape in the songs, but Les Nadie are neither cloying in their use of structure — not beating you over the head with a hook — nor so psychedelic as to be tripped out to the exclusion of conscious craft. Their efforts here stand as testament to the undervalued status of South American heavy rock in the broader, worldwide underground, but more crucially and more immediately, they announce Les Nadie as a band and Codne as a songwriter looking to break from the norm of sand-worship, riff-worship, worship-worship, etc., while remaining steadfast in their use of the tenets of genre. These two sides, like the banishment and sowing in the album’s title, feel disparate, but in Les Nadie‘s capable hands are the stuff of a richness that speaks to present immersion and future possibility all at once.
[…] to different magazines, websites and podcasts… Well, back in July 2022 we were reading at The Obelisk a review of the debut album of an Argentinian band whilst we were listening to their songs, and we […]