¿SÓLO EXTRAÑO?

Another quite uninspired electronic work from much celebrated prog guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez doesn't puts much in addition to what's already been said on his previous solo works.

The first track, 'Salt Lines', and 'Common Condescend' both remind me a bit of No-Man and their later albums, and I would say that actually all the vocals on this album (although heavily processed) remind me of Tim Bowness. Another interesting track is 'Invisible Laziness', which features some nice electronic effects, and 'Machu Picchu' is not a bad instrumental track.

Despite of some minor changes in style throughout the album, the music here looks quite sameish, and virtually has nothing really unique to offer to listener.

4/10. It's not the worst work in the vast Omar Rodriguez-Lopez catalogue, but definitely one of those you can easily live without.

Ah well, the hot streak was bound to end eventually, he released another album that I wasn't much of a fan of unfortunately. Solo Extrano feels like a bit of a retread of a lot of ORL's previous ideas that swirled around when he was messing about with more industrial and electronic sounds, having a very similar brand of dissonant murkiness, but unfortunately sounding far more amateurish at the same time. Even after having listened to this a few times now, I just don't really see much that especially stands out as something I find particularly engaging, not even conceptually. This separates it from an album like Un Corazon da Nadie which at the very least had the makings of something interesting underneath its lacklustre execution, with its dark, brooding atmosphere that bordered on sounding like some hopeless dirge. In comparison this just reads as a collection of abrasive, somewhat surreal tracks and nothing more, without ever really feeling as if it has a concrete enough idea to form into anything substantive here. Not the absolute lowest point in his discography, but certainly extremely inessential with even its standout moments not doing much you haven't already heard 50 times before in Omar Rodriguez Lopez's unending catalogue of music.