CHERCÁN

Out of the ashes of Hominído and La Desooorden, Chilean drummer extraordinaire Rodrigo González Mera erects a new band of very competent, even virtuosic, musicians. Recorded in Santiago and Valdivia, mixed in Coyhaique, and mastered in Santiago and Coyhaique Chile, Chercán's debut album was released on March 4, 2025. Chile is a big country! Valdivia is 855 km from Santiago and they're both fairly centrally located within the tremendous length that is Chile's length (4,270 km). (Your geography lesson for the day.) (Consider yourself blessed and anointed.)

1. "La culpa" (6:51) a very powerful, well put together, dynamic song that sounds like a combination of Francesco Zago's NOT A GOOD SIGN and Norway's SEVEN IMPALE. Wonderful! (14.5/15)

2. "Caen las hojas blancas" (5:46) sounds like a combination of THIN LIZZY and BLACK MIDI's music with Alessandro Calandriello's vocals singing KING CRIMSON's "One More Red Nightmare" then taken to near-death metal extremes with growl vocals and heavy-riffing syncopation in the instrumental passages taking us out to the end. I also love the shrieking saxophone in this end section. Awesome! (9.3333/10)

3. "Kalimba" (4:54) yes, it's founded on some kalimba play (the instrument actually remains in the mix--though almost getting buried--throughout the song's five minutes.) This song sounds more like something from Alessandro Calandriello's other band, LA COSCIENZA DI ZENO--at least until the fourth minute when it goes instrumental, then it spills over again into SEVEN IMPALE territory. (Since I love all three of these bands, Chercán really can't go wrong!) Martín's singing voice weakens a little toward the end as he tries to maintain singing the many long notes at such a high-volume. (9.125/10)

4. "Desolación (En)" (1:10) a wonderful string quartet interlude (which turns out to be an introduction to the next song, "Tiempos paralelos," which it feeds into. (5/5)

5. "Tiempos paralelos" (5:13) way more delicate and sensitive than the first two songs: kind of like some of the beautiful music the band AISLES has done over the past 20 years. Here the band reaches back into their cultural traditions for some very Andean-flavored music; even the instrumentation choices reflect their native acoustic instrumental preferences. What's really cool about this song is the slow build in the middle--which is greatly assisted by the pounding big-drum percussion play--that turns into the awesome proggy crescendo and finale. It's also so beautifully engineered and rendered! This is a song with which I have great trouble finding any flaw. (10/10)

6. "Las mentiras del muro" (5:14) a percussion-dominated and -dictated soundscape that reminds me more of Spanish band, ZA!, over which Martín's raspy/scratchy voice yells and screeches (also losing a little strength the longer he is asked to maintain this intensity). It sounds so weird to hear the saxophone sounding so smooth and beautiful--moreso than Martín's voice! Also, it feels/sounds like an unusual type of saxophone that Matías Bahamondes is playing. I like it! Martín hits some very high notes around 4:30 as the tribal rhythms around him become amplified by the electric guitar power chords. (8.875/10)

7. "Relato de una obsesión. Part I: Quimera" (6:50) it sounds heavy and ominous from the start but it ends up being very smooth and steadying; I feel as if I'm sitting in a cave being guided by a shaman into/through some mind-altering ritual under the influence of psychotropic medicine. I love it! I feel drugged! And so happy for it! (14.5/15)

8. "Relato de una Obsesión. Part II: El orate" (6:04) The trip continues but in the first two minutes the shaman begins prepping his subjects for proceeding "solo"--untethering us with the loud, heavy SEVEN IMPALE-like music into a rollercoaster ride through a high-speed, high-powered wormhole of demonic overstimulation, confusion, and horror. (9/10)

9. "Colores" (4:19) brushed drum play rendered up close in my head-phoned ears sound wonderful as they open this song. Soothing guitar chords, arpeggi, saxophone notes, and wordless vocalese work their way into a beautiful weave that the band carries forward for about a minute before the music shifts to dreaminess for Martín's first worded vocals. So beautiful! The guitar and strings interplay so beautifully. The percussion play is so hypnotic, as is the sax play and the whole woven tapestry! Awesome! What a gorgeous, soothing end to an awesome, awesome album! (9.75/10)

Total time: 44:21

Martín Peña possesses a great voice and he not only really knows how to use it but does an amazing job of conveying perfect commitment of both feeling and genuinely-enthusiastic focus to each lyric. Whoever is doing the songwriting, they have a great feel for structure and flow. Whoever is doing the recording and sound engineering is world class. And the team doing the performing sound so well-focused, so "together" in their commitment and timing that I find myself in awe of the level of collaborative amalgamation I feel: these songs sound and feel as if they've been made by one organism not a band of separate musicians!

A/five stars; an indisputable masterpiece of full-spectrum progressive rock music. It has been a LONG time since I've heard a new album that is this good!