Bordeaux, France, heavy psych pushers Red Sun Atacama release their third album, Summerchild, tomorrow, March 13, through Mrs Red Sound. They begin with a clarion of feedback before the rush of “Passenger” starts, brash, urgent, fuzzed and spacious. The message of movement is clear: get up and go if you want any hope of keeping up. As the trio of bassist/vocalist Clément Márquez, guitarist Vincent Hospital and drummer Robin Caillon follow 2022’s Darwin (review here), energy is a priority. That’s fair enough, both coming of that record and considering the band’s approach in general, but they’ve never been short on dynamic and they aren’t in these eight songs/40 minutes either, as the intro to “Weightless” (which in fact offers plenty of heft tonally) touches on some progressive shimmer, prefacing the mellow, near-dub finish given to the proceedings in closing track “Sundown,” brief but purposeful in its atmospherics.

So it’s not unipolar by any means, but if you take it on balance, Summerchild is a strong shove. The screams in “Passenger” and here and there elsewhere give an Oliveri-in-QOTSA impression, but neither are Red Sun Atacama solely aligning themselves to desert rock. Instead, they boogie in “Conveyer” before and after the break in its second half, and thicken the low-end fuzz density in “Weightless” (there’s a bit of float later on, don’t worry) to back the initial thrust of “Passenger” across a side A that’s vibrant and caps with “Commotions” and its drum-gallop that in another context I’d probably liken to High on Fire. Not exactly taking their foot off the gas, or so it seems until the big slowdown at the end of “Weightless,” which seems to meet all the tumult prior — that’s from the listener’s point of view; the band are plenty comfortable working uptempo — like a brick wall of groove to be slammed into. Righteously.

“Graze the Sun” soon enough takes off on the next careen, starting side B with consistency in terms of intent and efficiency, leading to a break and gradual build centered around guitar resonant enough to make me wonder if the song wasn’t titled in honor of Dutch outfit Sungrazer. Whether or not it is, when “Graze the Sun” takes off following that build, it’s in Red Sun Atacama‘s own fashion, and the subsequent title-track continues the thread, with a more terrestrial riff beneath the always-echoing vocals and a semi-return to the desert bolstered by both a ready-shreddy solo and a grooving slowdown at the finish. And if you were gonna twist my arm and force me to pick a highlight, it might be the eight-minute “Ragdoll,” penultimate to “Sundown,” for the manner in which it ties it all together, finds room for intensity and breadth, and, right into its last fadeout, refuses to be anything other than a good time.

Taken in its entirety — and since the whole album is premiering below, yes, that’s how I hope you’ll enjoy it if you’re so inclined as to listen — Summerchild is a reminder that a given record doesn’t have to be slow and ambient to have texture or build a world. In addition to mellowing out generally, “Sundown” also reorients Márquez‘s voice to a less-effects-based delivery, and thereby lets it convey a different kind of emotionalism; using the last moment in order to add to the scope without taking away from “Ragdoll” or anything before it. But the reason it fits is because even at their most tempestuous, Red Sun Atacama remain cognizant of space, of atmosphere, and of the psychedelic aspects of their sound. This gives Summerchild its balance, and is purely a result of their being in command of their songwriting.

As noted, all of Summerchild can be found on the player below in its entirety, and whether you’ve followed the band for their decade-plus or they’re new to you, the barriers to entry are minimal and there’s nothing that’s going to pull you out of it once you’re in, so by all means, partake.

Thanks for reading if you did. PR wire info follows in blue:

Red Sun Atacama on Summerchild:

Summerchild is a journey through the struggle of coping with inner ghosts. Each track is a different state of mind, with different ways of escaping, drifting, resisting, or clawing forward against personal demons. Some tactics hold for a time, others collapse spectacularly, but each one belongs to the same scorched path.

The album offers no clean answers or resolutions, just snapshots of life, like chapters in an unfinished quest for peace. At its heart, Summerchild is all about staying alive: fractured, failing, but still finding a way to ascend.

Album preorder: https://marsredsky.bigcartel.com/products?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search=summerchild

Born in 2014, Bordeaux-based trio RED SUN ATACAMA combine desert rock psychedelia and punk fury. Volcanic and wild, Chilean Atacama Desert mesmerizes the band as much as it inspires them. Their sound is driven by its beyond compare magnetism. Spread through the impetuous fuzz of legends Fu Manchu, Nebula or Mondo Generator, Red Sun Atacama praise the burning sound of the desert and the Holy Groove with irresistible slashing riffs!

Their self-released debut EP ‘Part 1’ came out in 2015, a few years before the band unleashed a bubbling first album entitled ‘Licancabur’ in 2018 via More Fuzz Records. The record definitely established the trio’s unique, raw and insolent style.

In 2022, Red Sun Atacama signed to Mrs Red Sound (French heavy psych trio Mars Red Sky’s own imprint) for the release of their sophomore studio album ‘Darwin’, the same year. Shaped by an overflowing desert rock, stoner and punk energy, and inspired by the Andean magic, ‘Darwin’ received many praises from the specialised press and got the band spotted by booking agencies 3C and Bullet Seed.

On stage, Red Sun Atacama fully manage to share the same hypnotic outburst as on their recordings. They already performed in various European countries alongside international heavyweights such as Uncle Acid And The Dead Beats, Mars Red Sky, Planet of Zeus, Slift. In 2024, they played DesertFest Antwerp (Belgium), Hellfest (France) and toured Europe in support from Dopelord (courtesy of Doomstar Bookings).

Red Sun Atacama’s upcoming album ‘Summerchild’ arrives on March 13th 2026 through Mrs Red Sound.

TRACK LISTING ‘SUMMERCHILD’

1. Passenger
2. ⁠Conveyor
3. Weightless
4. Commotions
5. Graze The Sun
6. Summerchild
7. Ragdoll
8. ⁠Sundown

LINE-UP
Clément Márquez: bass, vocals.
Vincent Hospital: guitar.
Robin Caillon: drums.

Red Sun Atacama, “Commotions” official video

Red Sun Atacama, “Summerchild” official video

Red Sun Atacama on Bandcamp

Red Sun Atacama on Instagram

Red Sun Atacama on Facebook

Mrs Red Sound website

Mrs Red Sound on Bandcamp

Mrs Red Sound on Instagram

Mrs Red Sound on Facebook

If you find yourself this November in one of the below-listed locales and are wondering perhaps how to cope with the ending of another busy, festival-filled October in Europe, Poland’s Dopelord and France’s Red Sun Atacama have your back as they join forces for about two weeks of club shows in Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland and Belgium. The Warsaw stoner-doom titans will head out in support of 2023’s Songs for Satan (review here), which turned the familiar genre trope of devil-worship in cult riffing into a political statement against their home country’s religion-backed push to the right in addition to having suitably burned its hooks into the foreheads of those who heard it.

Red Sun Atacama touched on modern space boogie blowout with 2022’s Darwin (review here), the three-piece scorching their way through a cosmos of expansive tones and resonant crashing bombast. I probably don’t need to say it, but one way or the other, it’s a tour that’s gonna groove. In heaping doses.

Poster and dates follow in blue, as they will:

DOPELORD (Doom, Poland) and RED SUN ATACAMA (Heavy Psych, France) to tour Europe this Fall

Polish heavier-than-heavy quartet DOPELORD and French riff machine RED SUN ATACAMA to hit the road together in November! Presented by Doomstar Bookings and 3C, the tour party plans to cross Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and Belgium. Get tickets!

TICKETS: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/11502723-red-sun-atacama

03.11.2024 DE KARLSRUHE – Alte Hackerei
04.11.2024 CH BASEL – Hirscheneck
05.11.2024 FR LYON – Rock’n’Eat
06.11.2024 FR MONTPELLIER – L’Antirouille
07.11.2024 SP BARCELONA – Sala Upload
08.11.2024 SP MADRID – Wurlitzer Ballroom
09.11.2024 FR BORDEAUX-PESSAC – Sortie 13
10.11.2024 FR NANTES – Le Ferrailleur
11.11.2024 FR PARIS – Petit Bain
12.11.2024 BE ANTWERP – Kavka Zappa
13.11.2024 DE BOCHUM – Die Trompete
14.11.2024 DE BRAUNSCHWEIG – B58
15.11.2024 DE BERLIN – Urban Spree
16.11.2024 DE COTTBUS – Muggefug e.V. (without Red Sun Atacama)

DOPELORD is
Paweł Mioduchowski – Guitars and Vocals
Piotr Ochociński – Drums
Grzegorz Pawłowski – Guitars
Piotr Zin – Bass, Vocals and Mellotron

LINE-UP:
Clément Marquez: bass, vocals
Robin Caillon: drums
Vincent Hospital: guitar, keyboard

https://www.facebook.com/Dopelord666
https://www.instagram.com/dopelord_666/
https://dopelord.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bluesfuneral/
https://www.instagram.com/blues.funeral/
https://bluesfuneralrecordings.bandcamp.com/
bluesfuneral.com

https://www.facebook.com/ElsolrojodeAtacama
https://elsolrojodeatacama.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/redsunatacama/

https://www.facebook.com/mrsredsound33
https://www.instagram.com/mrsredsound/
https://mrsredsound.com/

Dopelord, Songs for Satan (2023)

Red Sun Atacama, Darwin (2022)

Parisian heavy rock trio Red Sun Atacama will release their second album, Darwin, on June 17. It is their label-debut for Mrs Red Sound, the imprint helmed by Bourdeaux-based psych-prog rockers Mars Red Sky, and it follows 2018’s Licancabur (review here) while expanding the methodology of the three-piece began to feel out those years ago. Where the first full-length, which came out through More Fuzz, expressed its penchant for jams and shred across two vinyl sides in extended tracks like “The Gold” and “Empire” — both over 10 minutes long — Darwin seems to be bringing the sides together such that a song like “Antares” can move from an airier post-rock beginning into punch-bass-shred-guitar-shove-drums as quickly as the passing of a measure.

None of the six tracks on the vinyl-ready 38-minute offering hit 10 minutes, but in “Furies” and “Antares” after the intro “11-CH” on side A and even in the shorter pairing of “Echoes” and “Revvelator” on side B ahead of the eight-minute closer “Ribbons,” the three-piece of guitarist/keyboardist Vincent Hospital, bassist/vocalist Clément Marquez and drummer Robin Caillon harness a dynamic that is likewise able to rock out in the spirit of Earthless or emergent fellow Frenchmen Slift, and to open at will into broader atmospherics, improvised-sounding jams crucial to the flow of the album as an entirety and at times hypnotic unto themselves.

There’s still a distinct line between one and the other, as “Furies” readily demonstrates at (near) the outset, as Marquez‘s “woo!” exclamation precedes a slowdown and shift into the exploration that will consume much of the song’s second half as they build back up into a Truckfighters-style fuzz-fueled energy overload for a solo-topped payoff, but the fluidity of their changes isn’t to be ignored, and neither is the fact that, after “Furies” ends with a fury worthy of naming the song after, “Antares” starts so mellow and echoing.

That is not even the first and certainly not the last whole-album consideration on the part of the band, with the Spanish-style guitar giving over to the drums as “11-CH” moves into “Furies” earlier, but the signal is plain in establishing a flow just the same. And at 9:40, “Antares” is both the longest track on Darwin and an encapsulation of the album itself, complete with echoing spoken part over the post-crescendo comedown that gives way to a sudden last-minute kick of tempo and vitality, a surge that brings about the end of the record’s first half and offers a start the momentum that, on a non-vinyl linear format, will be continued through the beginning of “Echoes” (video premiering below).

Here too, Red Sun Atacama present a summary of their structural approach, their willful bringing together of traditional verse-and-chorus, desert-inspired heavy rock and more expansive fare, but in more concise, efficient fashion. It begins the back end of Darwin with a full-press groove, wasting not a second before sweeping the listener in its no-mystery-why-this-would-be-a-single sense of physical movement. They are controlled throughout, as demonstrated by the tap of wood-block before the second verse and the twists they work in along the way even before they turn rather suddenly into a subdued, melodic psychedelic break — just for a moment — en route to once again hitting maximum thrust. Marquez‘s bass makes it a highlight no less than Hospital‘s guitar swirl that emerges as the next slowdown is manifested with somewhat more patience, and, like “Antares” before it, brought to silence before coming all the way back.

And where the subsequent “Revvelator” is likewise set on the burning of barns initially, its five-minute run doesn’t have the same symmetry of tempo, slowing down after its rousing jam and rolling to its finish, an impact more of tone and crash than careening twists and gallop. It ends, as it must, in feedback, from whence “Ribbons” takes hold in mid-paced groove and a quick-arriving first verse. Thus the momentum set forth in “Echoes” and really the ending of “Antares” is held up even as Red Sun Atacama communicate the turn into Darwin‘s last stage, which will rise, recede, and rise again before a long fade out to the sounds of waves and a strumming acoustic guitar recalls “11-CH” not so long ago but feeling far away nonetheless, the band having unquestionably made a trip out of the simple going from one end to the other. A final example of the thoughtfulness put into the album as a whole.

Given the reach of some of the jam herein and the chemistry with which they’re executed, it is much to the band’s credit that Darwin feels as unpretentious as it does — the prevailing vibe is of a band doing what they do. Their progression sees them bringing the varying sides of their personality closer together than on the debut, and it’s entirely possible that will hold firm as they move on from this release as well, but some of the nuance in their jams, when looked at one next to the other, hints toward various surprises that may or may not be up the band’s collective sleeve, including changing up the structural foundation of their songs themselves, thinking of how “Ribbons” cascades in comparison to “Furies” and “Antares” before, or even how “Echoes” and “Revvelator” work to accomplish their own ends while resting so easily next to each other.

Red Sun Atacama have grown and are growing more adventurous. One hopes they’ll keep going on the path they seem to be creating for themselves.

The video for “Echoes” features behind-the-scenes footage captured at The Apiary Studio where Darwin was recorded with producer Amaury Sauvé, who also mixed and contributed percussion, and follows here.

Please enjoy:

Red Sun Atacama, “Echoes” video premiere

Red Sun Atacama on “Echoes”:

“Echoes has been thought as a fuzzy, heavy and straight to the point highway to the stars, an invitation to a black hole jam. With Echoes, Red Sun Atacama moves to a more garagy and speedy approach. Lemmy striking a drunk dead Stooge on the ground with a fuzzy hammer and krauty gloves.”

The video was shot at the studio during the recording sessions. Video by Vincent Hospital with the help of Seb Antoine.

Single off Red Sun Atacama’s new album “DARWIN” – out on June 17th via Mrs Red Sound. Recorded and mixed by Amaury Sauvé (who produced albums of hard core outfit Birds In Row) at The Apiary studio (Laval, France); Amaury Sauvé also plays additional percussions on most of the album tracks including Echoes. Master: Thibault Chaumont from Deviant Lab.

Album artwork Nicolas Marciano and Corinne Larre from Twisted Hooves Studio.

Track listing:
1. 11-CH
2. Furies
3. Antares
4. Echoes
5. Revvelator
6. Ribbons

LINE-UP:
Clément Marquez: bass, vocals
Robin Caillon: drums
Vincent Hospital: guitar, keyboard

Red Sun Atacama on Facebook

Red Sun Atacama on Bandcamp

Red Sun Atacama on Instagram

Mrs Red Sound on Facebook

Mrs Red Sound on Twitter

Mrs Red Sound on Instagram

Mrs Red Sound website

Granted, it’d be a hoot to tell you that I knew all along that this announcement was coming when I posted the Obelisk Questionnaire last week with Red Sun Atacama bassist/vocalist Clément Marquez, but the wretched truth is I’m not that coordinated. That questionnaire had been waiting to run for about two months, so obviously if anyone was thinking ahead, it was Marquez himself and not me.

Either way, kudos to him and to bandmates Vincent Hospital (guitar/keys) and Robin Caillon (drums) on inking with Mrs Red Sound, which is of course the label founded in 2013 by French heavy psych magnates Mars Red Sky. And while that band are also due a new long-player, word that Red Sun Atacama will release a follow-up to 2018’s Licancabur (review here) sometime later this year is also definitely welcome.

No real details on that yet, but I guess one thing at a time. The signing announcement follows accordingly, hoisted from the PR wire:

RED SUN ATACAMA sign to Mrs Red Sound Records for the release of their upcoming album on 2022

Desert punk outfit RED SUN ATACAMA are now officially part of Mrs Red Sound Records, the label founded by French heavy psychedelic band Mars Red Sky. They inked a deal with the cosmic house to release their sophomore album.

Paris-based desert punk trio RED SUN ATACAMA join Mrs Red Sound’s forces and announce a new album for 2022: “We are ecstatic to announce our signing with Mrs Red Sound for the release of our upcoming album! We are delighted to join this great household, already known for supporting rad bands of the French scene: Dätcha Mandala, Witchfinder, Baron Crane and Little Jimi. We can’t hardly wait to share more info on the upcoming release recorded at the Apiary studio by el magó Amaury Sauvé, prepare for some vitriolic boogie vibes!”

Spread through the impetuous fuzz of Californian legends Fu Manchu, Kyuss or Brant Bjork, RED SUN ATACAMA praise the burning sound of the desert and the Holy Groove with irresistible slashing riffs. Volcanic and wild, the Atacama Desert mesmerizes the band as much as it inspires them. Their sound is driven by its beyond compare magnetism.

Born in 2014 in Paris, RED SUN ATACAMA combines desert rock psychedelia and punk fury. They auto-produced their first EP ‘Part 1’ in 2015, and released a bubbling debut album, ‘Licancabur’, in 2018 via More Fuzz Records. The record definitely establishes the trio’s unique, raw and insolent style. On stage, Red Sun Atacama fully manage to share the same hypnotic outburst than on their studio efforts: they already performed in various European countries alongside international heavyweights such as Uncle Acid And The Dead Beats, Mars Red Sky, Planet of Zeus, Steak, Slift…

For their second album, Red Sun Atacama chose to work with producer Amaury Sauvé at Apiary studio; it’s coming out on 2022 via Mrs Red Sound Records.

LINE-UP:
Clément Marquez: bass, vocals
Robin Caillon: drums
Vincent Hospital: guitar, keyboard

https://www.facebook.com/ElsolrojodeAtacama
https://elsolrojodeatacama.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/redsunatacama/

https://www.facebook.com/mrsredsound33
https://twitter.com/mrsredsound
https://www.instagram.com/mrsredsound/
https://mrsredsound.com/

Red Sun Atacama, Licancabur (2018)

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Clément Márquez of Red Sun Atacama

—

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

You mean with the Atacama band? We play a mixture of heavy desert rock, with regular slides into psychedelic jams and an always on punkish abrasive spirit. The first album Licancabur was still rooted in desert rock but the upcoming album will push even further the crossover of styles!

We came to do this kind of urban/desert rock crossover very naturally. Since late teenage years we‘ve been listening to Stoner and Heavy Psych -music much more associated with beaches/space/desert- while growing up and living in big cold grey city!

Describe your first musical memory.

My very first musical memory must be witnessing my uncles on stage when I was five or six! They were an important act of Chilean folk music (Illapu) back in the days and without a doubt must the very first band I’ve ever seen live. Memories are blurry of course, but I remember the electricity in the air, the lights…and the smoke machine! (lol)

However, back then I cannot say I cared that much about the music per say, or at least as much as any form of entertainment.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

Tough one! As an audience, it’s a close game between the Stooges in 2007 and Motorpsycho in 2014. The Stooges gig was just MADNESS. Fury on and off the stage, sound insanely loud… as a sweet nineteen youngster, there was a real feeling of both danger from being in the frantic crowd and ecstasy from the sonic magma and energy pouring from the stage.

The Motorpsycho gig was kind of a “blind date” for me. I went there without knowing much of the band and on the recommendation from my friend Seb “Flyin Caillou” (from More Fuzz blog/label). I was blown away. Everything was so powerful yet beautiful, perfectly fluid while complex. They are really unique and hard to put a label on. One of the very few gigs that moved me to a tear, and I’ve been to a few!

As a band, again a tough one. We played various places and audience size, but strangely enough my best gig memory must be in Ghent’s Kinkystar, a smallish rock venue.

The event was organized by the NoNameCollective crew (they are rad!), and was iconic of what a good bar gig should be : place fully packed with bodies up to the entrance door, beer flying across the room, friendly mosh pits and risky crowd surfing, with music rattling windows and glasses on the bar. Electric.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I cannot say to be fair. I really consider music as something personal, and to a greater extent in the rock/metal music niches we are in. You have to be open to other people tastes and opinions, but at the same time should not feel compelled to satisfy and follow the pack neither.

There is some bands I really don’t dig but I would never presume they are “bad” and vis versa.

But again, and I don’t want to sound corny, I find that the Doom/Stoner/Heavy/Psych niche to be way less judgmental than some other Metal/Rock scenes!

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I think when you start out, you have a lot of influences to digest and you often tend to mimic some music/style/bands you already dig. Then, gigs after gigs, rehearsals after rehearsals, if you found the right match of band mates…you end up with something that’s more “you”.

That’s a progression that you can witness with most bands, usually the first album is kind of the “proto” version of the band, then the second and/or third album is really when the band defines itself!

Artistic progression is not be judge on how famous the project gets but how much it you feel like it’s “you”.

How do you define success?

Oof. Tough one again. The simplest common way to answer would be “to be able to do only what you like without having to worry about the money” but that a bit reductive and a lot of successful bands in the scene must work “regular jobs” when touring and recording is off.

The way I see it, and maybe this is “thinking small”, success would be when the whole band feel like they have reached what they aimed for at first, they are proud of what they accomplished, and that anything that comes after is bonus.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

Maybe I’m lucky, but in the context of the music scene, both as an audience and a band, I can’t recall something I wish I hadn’t seen. We had a couple of crappy sleeping places after some shady gigs, but that’s just bad experiences which make for great spicy memories to share later! (lol)

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I have this idea for some years now, to start a band mixing post-hardcore, sludge-doom and kraut elements. The whole thing with guitars, drummer(s?), bass, synth and at least 3 singing members. I have ZERO time to start such a project but that’s stuck in my head!

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

I have the sensation that art and even more music is the last transcendental domain we have left.

(sorry, so much gravitas, I know! lol)

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Same thing as most of the world : get back to a much “normal” life!

On a more personal note, also the release of our second album with Atacama. We just started to look for labels but we are really excited about this one!

https://www.facebook.com/ElsolrojodeAtacama
https://elsolrojodeatacama.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/redsunatacama/
https://www.facebook.com/morefuzzrecords/
https://www.instagram.com/morefuzzz/
https://morefuzzrecords.bandcamp.com/

Red Sun Atacama, Licancabur (2018)

[Click play above to stream Red Sun Atacama’s Licancabur in full. Album is out June 29 on More Fuzz Records with vinyl to follow this summer.]

Usually when a band puts a place-name at the end of their moniker, it’s because they’re from there and there’s probably another band with the same name who perhaps had it first. Before you go thinking otherwise, Red Sun Atacama are not from the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is noted as being the driest place on earth. They reside a continent away in Paris, France, which last I heard still gets plenty of rain. Comprised of the trio of bassist/vocalist Clément Màrquez, guitarist Vincent Hospital and drummer Robin Caillon, the French fuzzers make their debut with Licancabur, a six-track/35-minute long-player issued through More Fuzz Records that takes its title from the volcano located in said desert traditionally worshiped as sacred by the Atacameños people who live nearby. The album’s structure is somewhat quizzical, with a quick intro leading to a bookend of two larger songs with two shorter tracks between and one even-shorter track between that. Just for an easy visual, here’s the tracklist:

1. Intro (0:36)
2. Gold (10:38)
3. Red Queen (5:51)
4. Cupid Arrows (1:46)
5. Drawers (4:20)
6. Empire (11:57)

See what I mean? If you put aside the intro, you get five tracks that even sort of look like a mountain peak when written out. I can’t help but wonder if, since they named the record after a volcano, if that wasn’t on Red Sun Atacama‘s mind as they put the hard-driving, desert-rocking release together. Even if you keep the “Intro” — which taps into Morricone-style Western acoustic strum and folkish flutes before the leadoff riff of “Gold” quickly enters to begin the album in earnest — or consider that the vinyl breaks into two three-song sides, the basic idea holds up of climbing a peak to the punk-sprint of “Cupid Arrows” and then making one’s way down through “Drawers” and out into the long plain of “Empire,” which closes side B. May or may not have been intentional, but sure doesn’t feel like an accident.

Crucially, to coincide with this structural nuance, Licancabur has a front-to-back flow which, from that opening riff to “Gold” onward, finds the three-piece careening through high-energy desert riffing, making standout elements from bass and lead guitar interplay as they move toward the midsection of that opening track after the initial verses/chorus thrust and just before they pull back and drop out at around 4:30 to more laid back unfolding. “Gold” has a long instrumental break, keys included, but ultimately returns to vocals later, and even in this and in “Empire,” which is more insistently drummed to close out the offering but still has its own section reserved for a lengthy jam, there’s a consuming fluidity that carries the listener along with it. Red Sun Atacama border on hypnotic, but never seem on their debut to relinquish control into all-out drift, and so when they snap back to the forward push that plays such a significant role in their sound, they don’t necessarily have as far to go as they otherwise might. They keep that flow steady across the entire record.

A lack of pretense and/or self-indulgence always helps when it comes to desert rock sincerely working, as Licancabur does, to speak to the origins of the genre, which are punk at their heart. It certainly does Red Sun Atacama sonic favors, but part of that too might just stem from the fact that they don’t seem keen (yet) on wandering too far. Could be they’re worried about getting lost in the dry sands, but in “Gold” and “Empire” as well as in “Red Queen” and “Drawers,” they keep their momentum straight ahead of them and throttle back on tempo here and there, break to guitar, drums, whatnot, but by and large run fast and high-energy through the songs. Hooks provide landmarks in “Red Queen,” which might be the most purely Kyuss-ian riff included, and “Drawers” has an even more manic feel, holding together a tense vibe even as the guitar wahs out a lead in the middle and they make their way back to the slams and swings of the last verse, taking turns on bass, guitar and drums by measure to mark the transition into the outro. It’s a head-spinner, overriding control is maintained.

That control turns out to be one of the most impressive aspects of Licancabur, and nowhere more so than on the side B opener/mountain peak “Cupid Arrows,” which is the shortest inclusion at the 1:46 noted above, but still has an essential role to play in being the most furious moment of desert groove on the album. Much to their credit, Red Sun Atacama are off and running speedily and reference The Stooges on their way even as they seem to nod to a more echoing incarnation of earliest Dozer in the sort-of centerpiece, which is the apex of their momentum, thickly toned enough to be consistent with its surroundings and yet an immediate standout for its all-go-no-stop acceleration. If there is anywhere on Licancabur that Red Sun Atacama are in danger of losing their grip on their craft, it’s in “Cupid Arrows,” and they absolutely don’t. They execute the track at full speed like it ain’t a thing and then are dug into “Drawers” before the listener even has a chance to process what they just heard. Right on.

It’s a particularly encouraging facet of Red Sun Atacama‘s first offering — apart from the 2015 demo Part.I on which “Gold” (then “The Gold”), “Red Queen” and “Cupid’s Arrows” appeared — that they’re able to hold it all together with such apparent ease and smoothness, and where they’ve left themselves room to grow is in terms of patience and in the jammy moments like those in “Gold” and “Empire.” One can’t help but wonder if Red Sun Atacama‘s next offering might find them digging even further into these psychedelic landscapes, their fingers bare in exploratory dirt, but for now, while they might want to add an “of” to their moniker, they nonetheless provide a welcome, cohesive kick in the ass through classic-style desert rock and roll and leave one anticipating what they might do next. One could ask nothing more of their first album.

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