Is Espejismos, the latest release from Peruvian progressive heavy psych rockers Don Juan Matus, an album? There are a couple different ways to answer the question, and I don’t think any of them are wrong, only more right than the others. You could say no, it’s not. It collects five new songs recorded separately by the band members and couples them with alternate versions and early mixes to, at most, make an EP with bonus tracks dispersed throughout. You’re not wrong. You could say yes, it’s an album. It’s cohesive, it’s got a flow from song to song, and the five-piece obviously took the time to structure it in a way that made the most of that, so who cares if there are six engineers listed in the tape liner and that recording was done over a period of six years between the band’s beginnings in 2007 and 2013? They put it out as an album, it’s an album. Who cares anyway?

You wouldn’t be wrong to say that either. It’s all true. I land on the third option: Kinda. Is it an album? Well, kinda. Those new tracks — “Contico a los Dioses Antiguos,” “Vortice Espiral II,” “Espejismos II,” “Auroral” and “Carne Humana para las Masas” — do a lot to tie the release together, but for anyone who heard 2010’s Más Allá del Sol Poniente (review here), the Melvins chug and soaring vocals of “Mundo Alterno” and the classic heavy prog rock of “Kadath” are going to be familiar, even if the context is different and the songs appear on Espejismos in different versions than on the last album (“Kadath” also showed up on a split 7″ with Oxido last year; streamed here). So it’s kinda a new album from Don Juan Matus, whose future is reportedly uncertain on account of geographical distance between its members, but whatever you want to call it, it’s a smooth, varied listen, and particularly on the Caligari Records tape, which forces you to hear one side at a time, it does have an undeniable flow.

Only one of the new songs appears on side one, and that’s the opener, so side two, which starts with “Vortice Espiral II” is bound to be less familiar. What starts out with heavy ’70s style weirdo psych — Alice Cooper Band, maybe? — soon gets met with chirping frogs, acoustic guitar, flute and mellotron on a 2008 version of “Matorral,” only to give way to cymbal wash and kick drum thud on the brief “Espejismos II,” only to move into patient, ambient pastoralia on “Auroral” and offset more nuanced psych exploration on “Verde Nocturno/Las Horas Azules” with a cinematic vocal and instrumental progression backing an extended classic rock solo. Rounding out, “Carne Humana para las Masas” is — of course — a theremin, snare and lightly plucked electric guitar piece that sounds vaguely Eastern European in its sad melody, only to end with concert hall applause. So yeah, it’s a bit of work to keep up with everything Don Juan Matus have to offer even on the half of Espejismos that’s mostly new, but as was the case with Más Allá del Sol Poniente, it’s a challenge worth taking on for adventurous ears.

The cassette version of the album — if that’s where you’re at on the delineation — is limited to 100 hand-numbered copies (I got #29), and comes with an eight-panel insert on quality card stock that on one side has the foldout Daniel Serrano artwork and on the other gives the info on who in the band recorded what and when. That’s a lot to keep up with as well, but the upshot is that even when you know the songs, you never quite know what’s coming next as you make your way through the two sides.

Don Juan Matus, Espejismos (2013)

Don Juan Matus on Thee Facebooks

Caligari Records