LA PURA REALIDAD

Another excellent Mexican band!

Yes it is, and what a pleasure to at last review this self-titled album by La Pura Realidad, which is a new band formed by talented musicians that have dedicated their life to music, playing in different bands, and her they approached an excellent sound, created by superb compositions.

This album features 6 great songs and a total time of 45 minutes approximately, kicking off with "Roja Ciudad" which is a beautiful song to my ears, starting with a delicate violin sound, instrument which is very important in this album, since it leads several passages of the same. After a minute the song turns different, with a faster time and with the entrance of several instruments, the obvious ones such as drums, bass and nice guitar riffs, along with saxophone and the same violin, the sound now is more experimental, don't know if using the term of avant-garde may fit here, but is the first I thought. The structure and texture of the song is formidable, passionate and joyful in moments, very nice song.

The next track is "Sonando", a 10-minute epic which gathers all the elements the band offer to the listener, starts with a dark atmosphere created by violins, which little by little opens the door to the entrance of the other instruments. The song is progressing and just before minute 3 it explodes with a heavier drumming sound and again being the violin the one that leads and predominates the most, though there is always the guitar sound making some riffs and adding a special sound to the song. Up to minute 5, it stops and starts again with acoustic guitar reminding me to some folkloric and typical Mexican sound, so I love the way they make experimental music but without forgetting their roots, so that mix is exquisite. This is an excellent track, one of their finest moments.

Following we have "La Realidad", again starting with violin sound and seconds after the other instruments incorporate to the track, while we listen to a soft violin sound, there is the electric guitar making some excellent riffs in a lower volume in order not to sound that jammed. The song makes several short stops and rebuilds the structure, using both, their previous and new notes, there is a time, in the strong part of the song where it sounds bluesy just before stopping again, and return to the first song's structure, cool.

"Alegría" as the name suggests, is a joyful song which starts with drums and acoustic guitar, then electric guitar riffs appear and the violin starts creating a beautiful atmosphere while you create some images, well the ambient created is extraordinary and it puts a smile on my face, one of my favourite songs.

"Maria" is another great song that combines experimental music with folkish and typical Mexican tunes, again the violin sound takes your attention and along with constant drumming and fast acoustic guitar chords create a delicious atmosphere. Then the music turns into a relaxation time and elaborate some experimental passages, here the work of acoustic guitar is very helpful. Minutes later the song changes again but this time making a powerful and intrepid sound.

The album ends with "De Noche" which starts with some percussion sound reminding me to a classic Mexican song from the 80s named Kumbala, the mood is like a ballad and invites you to take your couple and dance softly together, it may be like a love song, but some minutes later it changes a little but just in order to return to the main theme, excellent closing song.

This album is very interesting and I like it a lot, because it shows typical Mexican elements along with some experimental ones, which makes it a versatile and complete album which I would recommend to anyone, not a masterpiece, but in my opinion a 4 star album.

Enjoy it!

Halfway between the energy of heavy prog and the exotic cadences of jazz-fusion, Mexican band La Pura realidad builds a peculiar stance in the current Latin American experimental rock scene. This band is full of veterans who have already left their mark in many historical avantgarde bands, so La Pura Realidad is basically the perpetuation of some distinct musical adventures gathered together to forge a refreshing rock style, a prog-friendly style, to be more specific. The well-organized variations instilled in the tracks' compositional structures and atmospheres are tha main reason why the presence of La Pura Realidad makes sense in a prog-zine. This album is full of cleverly developed jams, effective folkish colors and jazz- inspired articulations. The album kicks off with 'Roja Ciudad', an incendiary track whose funky vibrations provide a special dynamics. 'Sonando' finds the band exploring more complex sonorities: it starts with cosmic free-form nuances, bringing an initial disturbance that soon gives way to an exciting 3/4 jam as the main motif - with the emergence of a slow interlude, the track acquires a sense of sophistication. Now that ghins have been taken to a higher level of intensity, 'La Realidad' keeps the momentum going on a straightforward funsionesque tone: the addition of a blues-rock section makes things rougher for a while, while the jarana adds extra color to the rhythm guitar phrases (this is not the only piece in which the jarana appears as a source of sonic warmth). 'Alegría' is based on a relatively simplistic motif, with the violin and lead guitar lines displaying a recurrent candidness to the fore. The track itself leans more to teh standards of jazz-pop than to jazz-rock: the most sophisticated part of it is the drum solo right before the coda. With 'María' we are exposed back to the plethoric energy of track 2, and just like that one, it is an album's highlight. The alternation between greyish psychedelic sounds, folkish colors and robust rocking sections works amazingly. The bolero-based 'De Noche', recorded by a 50 % different line-up, is a very beautiful piece, quite dreamy... so it doesn't serve well as the album closer: somewhere in the middle should have been its appointed location so the final section powerful track 5 could close dow nthe album with flying colors. Anyway, this is an excellent album, like many from mexico's avant-garde rock scene. Although I must confess that this band doesn't impress me as much as Mar de Robles or Cabezas de Cera, La Pura Realidad can create enough musical greatness as to deserve a special place in any good prog rock or prog rock-friendly collection.

La Pura Realidad is a new ensemble from Mexico - and from Mexic's/Latin American brave "history" and "cycle" of prog rock - playing with a complex vein, with an absurd (at first) perfection and with a hardly easy instrumental pure mechanic. The band's first album can be a hit for many, a special album for some, and in rest a good, steely work.

The ensemble plays friendly and with a full gift, the violinist being the musician you could most admire: he gives both a raw and suave, fas and doused, killer and natural interpretation, with improvised, steamy or just springing melodies, some assumably folk or popular-extracted, others intense or even properly new (as in original), while small parts are just wicked or easy, as to sound cultivated and strong. The violin is definitely the special instrument in this quite typical (on the outside) prog rock band, its grand musicality not being spoiled within the rock and melody registers, except some ambient or even soft post-rock oozes. Besides Hanna Hipakka, La Pura Realidad is a witty and loud character band, the lead guitarist and drummer (there are many guests in this debut) doing all sort of hard, attractive or less fair tricks, while, sadly, the keyboardist and the synthesizer guest player have a cloudy role. Two saxophonists add up color and roast richness, once in a while, I myself am just not overly impressed. Hardest to imagine in this ensemble is someone taking on the vocals - and doing it as perfect as the violin, guitar or bass drums are tuned - because La Pura Realidad obviously loves an universe of instrumental forms, and what they do is the real deal, whatever the quality.

Praises aside, this band's chilling music can rapture you on its own, because it has quality, it has some overwhelming small emotions within all the acting and tenacious streaming, and because it shares a bit of progressive excessive influence, which means an achieved artistic matureness. Of course, you can think of King Crimson while the instrumental improvisations and solid visions step on your firmly, even of Gentle Giant, when the atmosphere is a subtle dance or a peculiar sequence of challenging techniques and crazy melodies (though rarer) - but La Pura Realidad is much more than that, so that, not for no reason, their little music (so far) has an extended echo into the Latin American unique rock character. Plus, doubtlessly, they are unique themselves. I did thought of Cabezas De Cera while listening, also because of the instrumental impetuosity, nevertheless that band really rules anything that's on prog rock's new music ground, as far as the a particular style of it goes; La Pura Realidad is not quite the same. In rest, many thoughts can fly off into many other directions, since the essential material of La Pura Realidad is complex and fire-worked, after which the music is, finally, the supreme character in setting straight how well you are impressed.

Out of the juicy pieces, Sonando, also the most epic composition, would be top outstanding - in there goes everything deep and special: from melancholy to rawness and improvisation, from dances made into peculiar notes to a rhythm-less passionate play, from pure rock to folk and pop-embalmed forces, from instrumental purity to several forms of inner reflections and expressions - and so on. Alegria and La Realidad are good (with very good spots), evolving every bit of powerful and artistic instrumental gesture, and not forgetting the breeze of a cute melody, the toughness of rock intermissions or the flake of a "latin" vitality. Maria disappoints through its easy melodies and funny-sided chords, while Roja Ciudad is not a bad "hard symph" piece, but lasts just like a wind of fusion prog.

Concluding, La Pura Realidad steps in very nice with its full instrumental delight and its strong mood and music debut. For now, the band's pretty scarce on main progressive rock references, a thing that should change as soon as possible, given how worthy they are - or insist to be, everything of their work seeming like a proper dedication to the spirit and the wheels of new prog rock. Worthiness and the pleasure of thorny rock, in the end, are the best of my four stars.