UN MANUAL DE SIGNOS Y SÍNTOMAS

1- It is the style that gives meaning to the band. 2- It can be the band that gives meaning to the style.

Vientos Moderados del Este ("Moderate Easterly Winds") is a band 100% of that second format. Definitely, they are not new kids in town, indeed, they have played so many styles and with so many different people in the last 20 years that it seems they have nothing left to do (Techno, Psychedelia, Jazz, Trash Metal... everything you can imagine). It's now, however, that they've decided to put It all in a pot to make a strange stew that lovers of the unpredictable will enjoy a lot.

'Un Manual de Signos y Síntomas' ("A Handbook of Signs and Symptoms") is the debut album by these three multi-instrumentalist musicians from Alicante (Spain). People who seem to have neither fears nor prejudices when it comes to writing music.

It is important to say that the only thing the 7 songs that make up the album have in common is freedom. There is no one song that resembles any other, nor a trait that defines the album in a categorical way, nor fixed elements that can remind you directly of someone. There will be moments when you'll feel like you're listening to the Beach Boys being flayed alive in the fifth circle of Hell or the bastard child that Spinetta and Charly García fathered while listening to Wilco and Black Sabbath. It's a journey in all directions that nevertheless conveys an astonishing sense of coherence when listened to in its entirety.

Almost no song is under 6 minutes in length, and they are made up of several parts which, in general, allow for a better understanding of the lyrics: dark, aggressive, philosophical and full of delirious existentialist meanings. The haunting cover, in fact, hints at the mystery of its content very well.

Songs such as 'La Familia' ("The Family), 'No habrá paz para los vencidos' ("No peace for the defeated") or 'La tarde en que Nietzche pegó a Platón con el Mechero de Jim Morrison '("The afternoon Nietzsche hit Plato with Jim Morrison's lighter") are messy, with sudden changes of plane and violent endings that have a very direct relationship with the stories they tell. For instance, 'No habrá paz para los vencidos' tells the story of a warrior from another time who ends up losing his mind after realising that his fame is directly proportional to the number of dead his sword counts. His descent into madness is accompanied by a sonic journey to Avernus that could have perfectly adorned one of Peter Hammill's or Black Sabbath's most anguished albums.

'Proxémica' ("Proxemics") (study of the use that people make of space in their relations with others), 'El discurso de despedida' ("The farewell speech") and 'Te hace falta un escarmiento' ("You need a lesson"), are closer to Canterbury Rock, in a more classic progressive way (Te hace falta un escarmiento could be their personal 'Starship Troopers'). Dense pieces, not exempt from certain instrumental virtuosity, and elaborated around passages full of sinuous spaces.

The album closes with 'Vasilisa y la bruja', a 16-minute epic cut divided into 5 parts and inspired by the 16th century Russian tale "Vasilisa, the beautiful": a sort of Cinderella, but in a gore-dark version. It is a complex song, very elaborate in its writing, which, besides telling the bloodiest passages of the relationship between the girl and the witch Baba Yaga, also boasts extraordinarily evocative instrumental sections between Ambient, Swing and 70's Hard-Rock.

Summing up, 'Un Manual de Signos y Síntomas' de Vientos Moderados del Este is an eclectic album, very daring, and made with a true love of a free musical expression. A true jewel of modern spanish´s progressive rock that doesn't try to copy or imitate anyone, offering instead a surprisingly personal and coherent discourse that adds a degree of freshness to current prog-rock that will please both exquisite palates and neophytes.

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