EJECUCIÓN

From the very first riffs and beats that get the opening track 'Vatkrakis' started, you can tell that this is going to be a very robust album. The promise of "Ejecución", Sarax's second album, gets solidly fulfilled by the time it reaches its end. A concept-album revolving around the morbid thoughts and emotions that fill an incarcerated man's mind during the night before his execution, "Ejecución" turns out to be a powerful catalogue of hard rocking sounds that cleverly translate the main character's inner turmoil into progressive and/prog-oriented music. This opening track sets an explosive mood, something like early Anekdoten-meets- standardized prog metal; then comes 'Cápsula Roja', an exciting 2+ 90s Crimson- inspired tour-de-force. The almost thrash bombast of 'Matapaco' and the sinister excursions of the excellent 'Delirio de Krinia' (one of the most complex tracks) reiterate the band's interest in displaying consistent aggressions toward the listener's psyche. All in all, even though Sarax was, by then, a guitar-bass-drum trio with a ballsy attitude and a taste for clever complexity, their sound didn't (and still doesn't) fit the power trio structure exactly, since they are very keen on the introduction of synthesizer textures and adornments, even in those tracks in which harshness prevails. Another aspect that is very noticeable in Sarax's offering is the presence of some sort of extravagant madness, especially when it comes to the introduction of brief, freaked-out monologues: 'Sentencia' is a complaint about the pointlessness of human life plus a contemplation of suicide, 'Juan Pirrón' is a display of angst against authority, 'Demencia' is a call for lunacy to release the man from his current fear of death. All three monologues are quite useful in order to clarify the conceptual nature of the repertoire, given the fact that most of the material is instrumental. It is hard (and even arbitrary) to pick up particular favorites from such a cohesive album, but most certainly, the aforementioned 'Cápsula Roja{ and 'Delirios de Krinia', together with 'Extenciones', 'Kovyamkho' and 'Organon' are real gems in their own terms. 'Extenciones', which contains an interesting mix of prog metal and jazz rock, has the peculiarity of being mostly performed by the three members of Tryo, while drummer Juan Pablo Velasco handled the keyboards; the latter two are actually repeated numbers from Sarax's debut album, only with a different mix. 'Vértigo' is a very odd track, indeed: initially led by the piano and ambient synths, the band displays an almost cinematographic mood of suspense, occasionally interrupted by space rock interludes, until a heavy metal coda emerges during the last 50 seconds right until the fade-out. 'Bruma' is an electronic synth-based excursion that brings memories of early electronic krautrock (Kluster, TD's "Zeit"), scary indeed, but mostly dark and mysterious. The ambience of the epilogue 'Engranje' creates a more frivolous mood: the basic idea is quite funny, the soundtrack to the dead man's transition to the afterlife is that of a merry-go- round. Well, there you go. Overall conclusion: "Ejecución" is one of the most extravagant prog recordings of the current South American scene. Sarax is the perfect example of how you can use musical inventiveness to mix complexity, hardness and humor.