FALSOS CONEJOS

Falsos Conejos is the name of this Argentinean power-trio devoted to experimental psychedelic rock under a tight progressive guise. "YYY" is the name of the band's second release and first long-play CD, which confirms it as a major name in their own country's underground rock scene as well as a name worth considering in high esteem from the current South American progressive "movement". This band can solidly explore and enhance the power and energy that the interactions between guitar, drum kit and bass usually generate whenever the musicians indulge in their shared musical expansions. "YYY" took a while to record and produce, a whole year's work, but oh, what a robust demonstration of contemporary prog brilliance it is! 'Estrobos' kicks off the album as a well-crafted exercise of alternations between rough and soft passages, in some sort of Led zeppelin-meets-Guru Guru sort of way. 'Villazon' follows on a more colorful note, firstly dominated by a warm funk-oriented motif, ultimately closing with a brief playful jam; the inclusion of a spacey interlude adds a proper touch of mystery to the whole thing. 'La Cubatera' states a fluid framework full of electrifying textures, controlled use of rocking punch and clean transitions between various motifs. This track might as well serve as the perfect sample of this album's most recurrent qualities. 'Sobrevuelo' sounds like fast post- rock, something like an amphetamine-fed version of Explosions In The Sky aided by the Don Caballero drummer and a guitarist from Sonic Youth: the soaring dynamics portrayed in this track works as a convenient counterpoint to the previous track's patently extroverted nature. For its last minute, this piece shifts toward minimalistic moods, which stage an ambience of anticipation for the next track's starting section: 'El Panq'. Indeed, 'El Panq' establishes quite straightforwardly the band's more muscular side in its main body after the eerie introductory portion. The bass solo is the nucleus of a soft interlude before a brief electrifying coda brings an amazing climax. 'El K-Co' is also very extroverted, but it is also more complex compositionally: the band really takes advantage of its 8+ minute span. Some Wetton-era Crimsonian influences are easily noticeable in the abundant psychedelic nuances that build the track's conclusive crescendo. This track is a definitive highlight of the album, and so is 'Atake DC', which reinstates and deepens the explicit dynamics that has been so predominant in the preceding pieces: 'Atake DC' can be described as a lesson learned from 'El K-Co' that has been ultimately refurbished from a stoner-centered perspective. 'Sierra Maestra' sets a variation in the shape of predominant grayish atmospheres, which at times let some rougher passages drop in and stage sources of diversity: the expanded interlude sounds to my ears like a homage to classic guitar- oriented krautrock and "Ummagumma"-era PF. Filling the album's last 10+ minutes, 'MTPTS' delivers a fluid combination of heavy psychedelic jamming and post-rock moods for the first 6 minutes; then, the band stops playing and we are treated with urban sounds before the trio goes back to music and delivers a blues-like space-rock jam as some sort of surrealistic coda. All in all, "YYY" is a very vibrant album, a testimony of the kind of fire one can expect from the progressive experiments that have been taking place in South American places for the last years. Falsos Conejos has been a real revelation to me and I can't recommend it enough to all prog collectors over the world.