570.KYTHERA

Sarax's third album find the band turned into a quartet, and in the process, augmenting the doses of energy and diversity in their own progressive style. This album is a conceptual follow-up to their previous effort "Ejecución": this time, our executed prisoner's soul is reincarnated into a resident in an asteroid that is soon to meet its conflagration. The ideas of constantly dying and not being really captains of our own ships fit perfectly the main character's recurrent frustration, which in turn, meets a most accurate correlation in the band's sonic angst. With the entry of guitarist Nicolás Figueroa, a lifelong friend and collaborator, the band's style wasn't actually changed but, as I stated before, enhanced in terms of a greater intensity in the instrumentation and a major colorfulness in the arrangements and adornments instilled in the musical ideas. This surely helps to enhance the cinematographic nature of the repertoire, making it a real musical narrative. The band's increased tightness is easily noticeable all along: right after the brief cosmic prologue 'Aparecen', comes 'Zirok', a bizarre calypso-meets- grunge number with a 90s-era KC twist, followed by the somber prog metal- tinged 'Pirrón'. With the next two pieces, 'La Oración de Glorio' and 'Pesadillas Makronas', things don't get smoother precisely, both being robust hybrids of space- rock and heavy metal, full of neurotic vibes: but never as neurotic as the ultra- aggressive 'Eventos en el POK', a sort of punk-meets-prog, somewhat similar to the legendary Cynic. 'Los Cachos de la Tormenta' is more ethereal, although still portraying an uneasy aura. 'Boicoteando el Propulsor' is indeed more serene: despite the underlying heavy guitar riffs, the Arabic synth lines take center stage, creating some sort of evocative mood. After the brief serene interlude 'Deliberando' (a tribute to old-fashioned 60s beat), comes 'Escapando de Iarkos', in which the stamina of hard rock, the exuberance of jazz and the standardized intricacy of prog metal get mixed in a fluid manner. The almost 5- minute long 'Fiesta Final' kind of recapitulates the somber and the rocking facets of the album, adding again some good dose of jazzy exuberance to the fold. These two tracks are arguably the richest and most complex in the album: sometimes I wish they had been expanded a bit longer, but anyway... The last two tracks are brief keyboard-based soundscapes, which sound obviously related to the previous album's closure: evidently, this is a hint of a future continuity in the extravagant saga of the Pirrón character. Overall balance: excellent album, indeed - "570.Kythera" surpasses the high standards of experimentation in rock as they had been set in "Ejecución", and so, we can say that Sarax is one of the most outstanding 'unclassifiable' prog acts nowadays.