EL CIELO

"El Cielo" is 57 minutes of soaring melancholy and beauty, with songs so powerful and moving they will hypnotize you.

Dredg is a strongly praised art rock band from California. Their most famous and most recognized album is "El Cielo", loved by Alt Rock fans and Prog Rock fans, which makes it a really acclaimed piece of work all over the place, and it's not hard to understand why.

Even at first listen "El Cielo" isn't your average Alternative Rock album; the progressive side of it is well highlighted thanks to some interesting bridges within the songs, and thanks to the massive use of many guitar effects, even a lot of tremolo picking, which helps enormously in building a solid wall of sound, similar to a Post-Rock one. This said, you can start throwing in the influences, like Tool and Radiohead, but Dredg is a very original band, with a very unique sound, because of their songwriting, the instrumentation they use, and the experimentation they put in their music.

"El Cielo" is 57 minutes of soaring melancholy and beauty, with an interesting concept about sleep paralysis and reveries, with songs so powerful and moving they will hypnotize you. That's how great some of these tracks are. "Sanzen", "Sorry But It's Over", "The Canyon Behind Her" are magnificently executed songs, full of that mentioned melancholy and beauty, that truly strike you. "Convalesent", "Same Ol Road", "Whoa Is Me" are other really good songs, partly because of Gavin Hayes' beautiful voice and his excellent delivery. But I do have some gripes; almost all the Brushstrokes interludes, despite being fairly short, could have been a lot better. A filler should be short and should grab you, or relax you, but it has to have the same impact as a regular song. This doesn't happen here, unfortunately. The listening of the album however is not even close to being ruined, an album that is able to express sadness and dismal through cool drum loops, gentle weeping of a guitar, and a soft, enchanting voice.

I enjoyed the album quite a bit, a really good example of how Alternative Rock can be highly progressive and beautiful. Recommend it to pretty much all the fans of Prog and Alt Rock, as well as Post-Rock and Art Rock fans.

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