Regular visitors to Desert Psychlist will already know that we like to feature music from Central and South American bands on these pages, we do not do this because we are trying to show how hip we are to the global underground rock scene but simply because there is so much good music coming out of those countries that we think the rest of the world deserves to hear it. Not too long ago if you asked about South American rock or metal then you would immediately be regaled with a long list of Brazilian band names to check out as, for a time, anything worth hearing coming out of the South America's seemed to emanate from there. This started to change a few years ago when the strict regimes in countries like Peru and Chile changed and began to allow musicians a little more musical freedom, suddenly there were bands coming at you from all over the continent.
One of those more recent bands to explode out of South America are Inche Kai Che, a Chilean four piece from Curico consisting of Magol (guitar/vocals); Cris (guitar/vocals); Jony (drums/backing vocals and Diego (bass), the band only came together in 2020 but you could be fooled into thinking they had been together longer such is the tightness and fluidity of their grooves, a tightness and fluidity that runs throughout their self-titled debut "Inch Kai Che".
First track "Perderse es Encontrarse" explodes out of the traps with a lone guitar motif, one of those hooky affairs guaranteed to get your attention, it is then joined by the second guitar, bass and drums and together the band take off on not so much a gallop but more a healthy canter. Built around a recurring riff (think Budgie's Breadfan here) with the occasional deviations into blustering heaviness and boasting a top notch lead vocal (in Spanish) and some nice harmony work the song serves as the perfect opener for what is, for the most part, a collection of very good old school flavoured hard rock, doom and metal tunes given a shot of stonerized fuzziness. "En el Camino" follows and much like its predecessor is a mid-tempo hard rocker with an irresistible groove, where it differs from the albums previous track however is in how well each member of the band plays for the song yet are still able to stamp their own identities on things, the differing tones of the two guitar players compliment each other perfectly while the bass player and the drummer do not only anchor the groove they also, at times, get to steer it. "Atemporal" rears its gnarly head next and here we find Inche Kai Che slowing things down a little, the band tempering the more raucous elements of their sound with an added element of bluesy proto-doomic colouring and adjusting their vocal attack accordingly. This blues(ier) direction is continued on instrumental "48 horas sin dormir" but here we find the band also flexing their psych muscles with glistening arpeggios and soaring solos swirling and ringing over a backdrop of shuffled beats and low liquid bass. Having toyed with doom for a couple of tracks the band fully embrace the genre with "Rio Arribe" but cannot help but put a lysergic spin on things while for "Incomprensión" they revert back to the raucous hard rock that they kicked this album off with. Last track "Pantano" is another instrumental, it is a languid and lysergic workout that sees the two guitarists trading heavily effected licks, solos and arpeggios over a deep booming bass line supported by loose and restrained percussion, the track threatens to build towards a crescendo but instead winds slowly down which might sound like an anti-climax to some but is actually quite clever and leaves the listener desperately wishing for more.
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