Monday 11 July 2016

Demonauta - Tierra del Fuego (Album Review)


Release date: June 27th 2016. Label: Kozimik Artifactz. Format: DD though CD/Vinyl will be released later this year.

Tierra del Fuego – Tracklisting

1.Into the Darkness 05:39
2.Sahara Trip 04:13
3.Del Vendaval 06:37
4.Astro II 04:41
5.Cosmos 05:28
6.Venas de la Tierra 07:21
7.Psiconauta 08:04

Band Members:

D: Guitar/Vox
M: Bass
A: Drums

Review:

I was always passionate about the Latin-American Stoner Rock Scene. Bands like Los Natas, Humo del Cairo, Ararat, Sutrah, Las Diferencias, Taura, Los Antiguos, Cultura Tres, Banda de la Muerte, Bandera de Niebla, Buthan, Aeroblues, De la Tierra are just few example of the best (to my opinion) bands that ever trod the Latin Stoner rock/metal scene. They all have something that makes me feel good and at home, probably because of a certain genetic affinity. I don’t know.

What I really know is that, among so many amazing bands, in the last few years Demonauta almost certainly rank among the top places. My review of the new Demonauta’s album, Tierra del Fuego, might well have ended with a simple “what the fuck”, nothing more, nothing less. It was a long time that an album does not win me the very first listening, sending the one that, after all, can be called a real Stendhal syndrome. Every single note in this album is perfect, so that even at a very first listen one realizes of being in front of a small beautiful masterpiece. David (vocals & guitars), Miguel Angel (bass) and Ale (drum) are the final line-up of this monstrous factory of stoner metal blended with sun-drenched riffs of desert and fuzz rock, perfectly fuelled by a huge rhythm section sustained by a massively fuzzed out bass lines.

With 7 tracks for a total of 40 minutes-trip, Terra del Fuego (released by Kozmik Artifactz), goes beyond stoner/fuzz metal, adding much more atmosphere and psychedelia than previous releases, remind me in certain passages bands like Samsara Blues Experiment, Colour Haze or Weedpecker (my favourite 2015 release). The album starts with Into the Darkness, a song with a shot where the use of fuzz remind to the Truckfighters of Gravity-X while the second track, Sahara Trip, is a groovy instrumental song that sounds like the perfect mix between Kyuss and QOTSA. Through the listening of the album, you get the feeling of being slowly driven from a pure stoner/desert sounds to pure psychedelia. In the middle of Terra del Fuego, we can find songs like Del Vendaval, but especially Astro II that could be easily compete with classics stoner/grunge songs taken from Dirt of Alice in Chains.

The album ends with three tracks almost completely instrumental, Cosmos, Venas de La Tierra and Psiconauta, an ensemble of songs that it would be simplistic to define perfect. Through the clever use of phaser/flanger, Demonauta with Cosmos and Psiconauta create the most heavy and trippy songs of the album, whose names fully reflects the cosmic spaces to which the mind is directed during the listening. Between the two, we can find Venas de La Tierra, a song that is very close to the sounds and atmospheres of My Sleeping Karma and Samsara Blues Experiment. After 40 minutes of listening I put it all over again, and listened again and again and again... .

What remains after listening to Tierra del Fuego is a healthy awareness that we are facing a little gem that anyone who loves stoner and heavy psych sounds should have in their collection. Here, we are in front of kick-ass mastery music, able to range across several influences and displace the listener with one of the best album released so far. Do not be "fooled" by their origin, from Andes to Palm Desert, Demonauta will blow you away.

Words by Bruno Bellisario

Links:

Facebook | BandCamp