There is something going on in the international underground scene that has never really happened before, bands from the countries like Brazil, Argentina and Peru, situated at the southern end of the America's, are not only creating music to be enjoyed by audiences of their own respective countries they are also making music that is reaching out to a much wider international market and Chile, that strip of land running like a spine down the South American west coast, is no exception.
Heráldica de Mandrake, a trio from Santiago, Chile, consisting of Francisco Visceral Rivera (guitar/vocals)and vocals; Max Salazar (bass/backing vocals) and Cristian Rivera (percussion), jam grooves that although owe a huge debt to the doomic grooves of Northern Hemisphere bands like Reverend Bizarre and Count Raven contains enough "rice and beans" to give them their own unique identity, as can be heard on their epic one track EP "Esto Tambien Pasará".
"Esto Tambien Pasará" begins with drummer Cristian Rivera beating out a huge military-like percussive tattoo that is then joined by the harmonised voices of Francisco Visceral Rivera and Max Salazar in tones that can only be described as Gregorian, monastic chants that give the proceedings an almost spiritual yet at the same time satanic feel. The Ep's lyrics are all sang in Spanish and far from limiting their appeal to a potential wider international audience they add an element of mysticism to events giving the listener the feeling they are witnesses to some sort of ancient religious ritual. Musically "Esto Tambien Pasará" sits somewhere between epic doom and its stonerized equivalent with a variety of big thundering guitar riffs driven hard by equally thundering percussion and bass around which the band intersperse elements of swirling heavy psych and experimental space rock, the trio regularly taking their grooves off on weird and wonderful tangents but just as regularly returning to the rustic core elements of their doomic origins.
In a scene that regularly looks backwards for its inspiration it is refreshing to find a band trying to do something a little different with those inspirations, and what Heráldica de Mandrake bring to the table with "Esto Tambien Pasará" is certainly different and maybe even a little brilliant!
Check it out ....
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