LA DISTANCIA

Talented and powerful as ever, searching for new ways to enhance their taste for complex, artsy rock within their stoner-based heavy prog style, Argentinean instrumental ensemble Posedótica has given one step forward with their 2008 sophomore effort "La Distancia". Just like their debut release "Intramundo", this repertoire is based on a narrative concept, this time regarding the notion of the self as taking part in many simultaneous universes (bassist Martín Rodríguez wrote the narrative inspired by Aldous Huxley). This album really takes the psychedelically infected musical trips to a further stance of structural sophistication, which in turn helps the guitar riffs and the rhythm duo to enhance their combined sonic strength. The namesake opener fills the first 5- minutes of the album, starting with a very ethereal mood until things turn to a more relaxing atmosphere, adorned with jazzy cadences. The bridge between these two sections is cosmic-oriented heavy interlude augmented by Theremin washes, ultimately returning for the effective coda. 'Sueño Narcótico' is pure Poseidótica to the nth power - by that I mean that it is a blunt weapon of intelligent sound filled with psychedelic colors and progressive variations, resulting on a whole as majestic as it is rough. A highlight it is. Track 3 bears a languid spirituality that brings the band closer to metal-friendly post-rock. That it until we've passed the third and a half minute, which is when things become more extroverted and get hard and spacey (the most recurrent Poseidótica stuff). 'Campo Magnético' finds the band displaying grandiose sonorities in a very aggressive fashion: a track that will please the relentless rocker within us all progheads. With the short 'Maldita' (it doesn't reach the 2 minute span), Poseidótica retains this sort of electrifying energy. 'Equinoccio' takes us to a different place; a very trippy set of deconstructive ideas built out of heavily psyched guitar riffing and random rhythmic adornments, refashioned through the use of console effects and reversed tapes. Guru Guru or Ash Ra Tempel would have been proud to conceive a piece like this for any of their earlier albums, but no, Fate had it reserved for these young South American minds' in a 2008 album. This exercise on spacey deconstruction serves as a threshold to 'Anfibio', a piece that successfully articulates the alternation of various stoner-infected sections with heavy rock treatments and an overall prog scheme. The duet of tracks 6 & 7 installs the expectations for the 14 ¾ minute closure 'Las Magnitudes'. The epic entry signaled by the almost martial drumming and the monochromatic cadences drawn by one of the guitars creates an impact of constant climax, soon developed in a whirlwind of tension. In a way, this is similar to what surf-rock would sound like if provided with artsy pretensions and an ultra-ballsy attitude. Some guitar phrases sound a bit Crimsonian and some slight tempo shifts set an agile jazzy mood, all of them momentary sources of variation in a very compact section. Once the whirlwind is over we are given a sonic portrait of solitude in the dark with minimalist synth layers. Then comes a psychedelic mid- tempo motif marked by soaring guitars, showing the constraint side of Poseidótica before arriving to a more explicit jazz-rock section that bears some funky undertones. The last 45 seconds are reserved for the reprise of the first motif, the mandatory coda that this ambitious track seemed to demand. Merciless vigor and sonic eclecticism in an envelop of robustness and complexity: this is how we can describe the very core of Poseidótica and this is what we find in "La Distancia" in a more refined version than in their previous release. Poseidótica stands out as a major force in the current scene of heavy prog, and as such they should be appreciated and acknowledged in all prog circles around the Internet.