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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Whether the music is your thing or not, what you have to admit about Disparen! (Aquatalan), the second album from Argentina?s El Festival de los Viajes is that it?s accurately titled. Disparate, unique: they simply don?t fit, and that?s clearly on purpose. Disparen! boasts a sound taking cues from the psychedelic spaghetti west and somehow transposing them over rock structures. Can meets Ennio Morricone? Maybe. If they?re anything, they?re hard to pin down.

That being the case, Disparen! is all the more satisfying listen for its individualist qualities. Morricone is an obvious stylistic comparison; the Italian composer scored For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once upon a Time in the West, as well as over 500 other films both western and non. But El Festival de los Viajes are definitely a rock band, if one with considerable folk elements. The subtle groove in the wah guitar of ?El Andante? proves it. I hesitate to call them experimental only because of the connotations of totally inaccessible artistic nonsense the word brings out. Disparen! feels less like that than it does the byproduct of a band simply doing their own thing.

I?ll pause here to allow those who just gasped to recover their breath before continuing?

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