The Mind Expansion Thread - Psych/Space Rock

The Black Tomato
Oresund Space Collective Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by sinkadotentree
Prog Reviewer

Hi there! This review will be totally biased since I'm (was? dunno, really) El Diablo's drummer... I just want to thank those guys that wrote those nice reviews... Anyway, this album is quite different to the rest of the stuff we recorded throughout the years. El Diablo, truth be told, is a heavy rock/stoner band, with psychedelic overtones... But, you see, since at the very beginnig we were always on drugs, at least ganja, we always kept an open mind, and for a while we got heavily into progrock so we decided to try out some new (for us, anyway) ideas... man, it's been nine years since we recorded this album, so I'm trying to remember why in hell we did this! I guess it had to do with the fact that we thought we were post-modern hippies, so, accordingly, we searched out those old-timers who might have shown some interest in our music. for starters, we wanted to distance ourselves from our heavy metal roots- actually, in case you didn't know (I'm sure you don't, and that's fine!), El Diablo started out as a hardcore/thrash metal band!!!! we used to call ourselves 34-D, and playing that kind of music was actually great fun. someone even put our demo out, in cassette form, in 1994! after some time we got burned out because metallers thought we wer too punk, hardcore/anrachits types thought we were too metal (they hated our super long, alice cooper-like locks...), and both scenes thought we were fast becoming fried-brain hippies... which was true hehe! anyway, the old-timers had to follow their own prejudices and cliqués, so they told us we were too young and too heavy to be a real 70's-worship band, whatever that means! but an old guy with a long white beard and snow instead of hair liked us enough to 'sign' us to his label: smogless records. he's well known in prog circles because he used to put out all kinds of wacky mexican stuff, even some classic re-issues... he liked us because his rocknroll knowledge is so incredibly vast, so he heard some demos and thought we sounded a bit like keith relf's armageddon, mixed with sabbath and blue cheer. that's kinda accurate, but actuatlly we wanted to copy and emulate the edgar broughton band, november AND corrosion of conformity... so we payed for some studio time and recorded the album. called some friends for help and smoked so much that towards the end we really didn't know what we were doing. our ego grew so badly we thought we had actually made an album of pink floyd proportions. but the guy at the mixing board didn't help matters any: he was so stoned he kept on rearranging levels and stuff, so when we heard the final mix, in the comfort of our own homes, we noticed that Ivan's guitar had been buried, that the third song (purusha) had sped up (and the original, correct version is nowhere to be found), and that the keys became discreet, laughing mice, if that makes any sense (ok- they were VERY low). we wanted to fix things, but we were out of money, and the mixing guy was out of town, so we were [%*!#]ed... later on we remastered it, but the new overall level went overboard because the master-guy was also incredibly stoned! first he was all serious and snobby, claiming he hated heavy metal and all that jazz. actyally, he's the former guitar player of a 'classic' Mexican RIO band: the high fidelity orchestra. so much for his principles: a few hours later he had all his hair in his face, and he was standing there headbanging on repeat to captain obeatleration hahahaha! ... so smogless put the record out and maybe sold, after a few years, its 1,000 copies pressing. or maybe not... we played a few times, recorded some more stuff (my all time favorite is our live record- it's way heavier, the songlist is completely different, it features a couple of studi tracks off our first demo- recorded in '97 - and sounds pretty good for a sony blank cassette that I found below the driver's seat of my car about 10 minutes before the worm, I mean, before the show) and we sort of went into hibernation in 2002 or '03... man, nobodu cared about us, so it was really depressing, plus we were all bankrupt and in our early thirties... but that's it. now a quick rundown: huautla - nice song, nice flute work, nice out of tune and badly played but lovable citar. this is actually an ode to a magical place way up in the mountains, somewhere in southern mexico. the people are nice, they're all indians and hardly speak spanish, sadly they're all very poor, but the mushrooms are great. so it's great to go visit at least once a year... mindbender - we used to jam to the main riff life or at rehearsals, just to warm up. it's obviously influenced by the floyd (echoes), and maybe quatermass... purusha - this song I truly hate. well, the real, slow version is pretty nice, all hippy-dippy, but at this speed it actually sounds like bad troll-rock. I wanted yo include lyrics, but i came up with some real corny stuff about Indian mythology and meditation.... captain obeatleration - heavy and more akin to El Diablo's real sound. it's fast, except for the middle santana-like part. actually inspired by armageddon and motorhead. tod you we were metal heads... my fave track oof the album, by the way.... equus - it drags on forever and it bores me to death. haven't heard it in years, and probably won't hear it again till my dying day. we wanted to be deep purple or something, but the guitar's low volume doesn't help one bit. avoid at all costs!!! rumanian blues - a nice acoustic piece, the sound tripped out with some effects. actually, Victor, our bassist wrote the damn song and played on it! in my opinon, Victor should release a solo album featuring stuff similar to this. i know i would take it with me to huautla... nosehablemás- we wanted to be a heavy metal Gong/Zappa. it's funny and not so terrible, but sadly, badly played. my drum playing here sucks and it makes me blush... Ok, I'll give it three stars... thanks for reading! rock on... Fernando Benpitez/El Diablo

In my will of promote Mexican bands, this time i will talk about El Diablo.

This band is not so known around the world, not even here in Mexico, they recorded their first and only album (self-titled by the way) in 1999, before that, they had some line up changes and a blend of various genres such as metal, psychedelic and rock. Like other 90`s bands they have been influenced by Pink Floyd, Gong and Guru Guru among others, in this album we can appreciate some of that influenced sound. Categorized as a psychedelic space rock band, i think that`s where they belong, with hints of jazz and experimentations were placed in this album, so here i go with the songs.

"Huautla" is the first song, a great song which show us the quality of the musicians, besides the members of El Diablo, here we can find guest musicians, for example in this song Alejandro Otaola (guitarist of Santa Sabina, an excellent mexican band) plays the sitar, sitar is not so frequent in progressive rock, here it makes the song more special and with a unique sound, progressiveness through the song.

"A Mind Bender" is a long song, characterized for that soft but great guitar sound Ivan Nieblas who is/was the leader of the band makes a great work playing the guitar and also the bass in the next song. This song is almost always the same rythm, bass sound reminds me of the swcond part of Pink Floyd`s Echoes, also here we can enjoy the psychedelic passages.

"Purusha" starts with that mentioned bass sound making the rythm of the song,it is not the best song of the album, maybe a little repetitive, with it`s slow tempo moments, but nothing of another world, drums are always great.

"Capitan Obeatleration", a weird name, i dont know if it has something relationed with The Beatles, at least the music is so different, it shows us from the start a psychedelic oriented band, strong guitar riffs, this song is great, a clear example of "modern" psychedelia,another almost 10 minute song, with this song louder your mind will fly!.

"Womoon" is another of that slow songs, which are envolving you, slow tempo song, the first and only with vocals, also here we can find a very nice flute sound, the guitar chords are always the same, but it makes it great, it is not necessary to change, i like this song a lot.

"Equus" wow, an excellent song, the highest point maybe, it is the largest over 11 minutes, again with that great guitar through the song, in fact it doenst have mood changes or time changes etc, but that 11 fast minutes of great guitar and armony makes your mind blowing , i really enjoy it, it freaks me out.

"Rumanian Blues" show us that space and cosmic sound, not as clear as Hawkwind for example, also this song is again slow tempo, experimentation , but with a similar style all the song, this time the acoustic guitar took the show.

"Samelbaheson" is the last song of this great album, and of course it couldnt get behind, it is another great song, but this time with a great change, it starts again with that exquisite sitar sound togehter with a voice over nowhere, which is reminiscent to some indian music, but suddenly El Diablo returns, again with that superb guitar with faster tempo, bass and drums like always great, also the flute appears here with an acid sound.

I really love this album, it doesnt have weak moments, this makes me think about give to it 5 stars, but im doubting, so after all i highly recommend this album, a great exponent of Mexican prog, and 4.5 stars really, because it is not a masterpiece, but it could be of course a great addition to any prog lover.