LA POTESTAD

This is ALEJANDRO MATOS's fifth solo album. Five years ago he contacted me and other reviewers from Prog Archives to listen to two of his albums ('Persona' and 'Freak'), a thing that I did then and also I wrote reviews about them. I do the same now for his 'La Potestad' album.

It is not easy to know the meaning of the lyrics by only reading them.

As a whole, the album is 'dark'. Not very optimistic. Musically , the album, like the two previous albums by Matos, has some Gothic Rock influences, and also sounding to me like being influenced by THE CURE, ROGER WATERS, PINK FLOYD, THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, etc. Sometimes the music is very dense, dominated by distorted guitars. There are also some keyboards, the use of bandoneon, clarinet, contrabass and theremin. The recording and mixing are very good, and it seems that Matos this time gave more space to each instrument, not sounding saturated, like he and his collaborators recorded few overdubs. His vocals sound good.

Again, I say that this kind of music is not the kind of music that I listen to very often. But this album has some interesting things in the Prog Rock music sense.

The cover art reflects very well the content of this album.

Another dark album from the Argentinian multi-instrumentist Alejandro Matos. As in his previous albums, lyrics have a huge importance. Surely not an easy one, first of all for the darkness of the music but also for the tightness of the concept and the lyrics. For this reason I will try to examine the album track by track.

Alejandro Matos has explained that the concept is about "power", intended as (his words) "a way to feel good".

The first track, Escindido (Split Off) is instrumental. A piano with a lot of pedal reverb sadly playing few notes on minor chords introduces the album while a background voice says something in English. I can't understand what. It ends suddenly giving room to "Cazadioses", whose possible translation is "God Hunters". The instrumental part is reminiscent of Pink Floyd and King Crimson, at least to my ears, but the guitar is sometimes hard. The vocals are very particular. In his way of singing Alejandro can appear a little untuned at a first spot, but this is how he integrates the lyrics with the music. I suppose that the songs couldn't be different. So this is the point: like it or hate it. I think it fits well with the music but of course we can't speak of "commercial potential". The song speaks of people hunting for a God that is not feared, trying to make a duel.

"Potestades"(Powers) speaks of becoming God by ignoring pain, otherwise we can only worry aboutkilling or being killed. I want to remark the sound of the guitar which is reminding of George Harrison's playing. Very intriguing. I couldn't imagine the Beatles playing a so dark music. The passages are never trivial, and instead of a chorus there's a very nice bandoneon solo. A link to the artist's country traditions. But effectively there's a lot in this track. A short guitar solo followed by a reprise of voice and 12 strings guitar.

Now, after hunting for God, we have an "Angel" who "doesn't come from Heaven, he opens a thousand of doors and closes only one". It's about the power of innocence.Technically intriguing, voice and acoustic 12 strings (I guess) guitar with a keyboard background and the same huge amount of reverb of the first track. The guitar harping in the instrumental part reveals how important is Alejandro's voice in setting the mood. There's also a Theremin in the final part of the track.

Anclas(Anchors) can be explained by translating the last part: "I have repaeted thousands of times: I won't accept. Everything has lost weight. Nails under the skin. The language of fakers can be learnt." This is the power of obstinacy. A very rocking track introduced by vibrato keys and followed by the chanonical guitar, drums and bass. Here also the voice sounds a bit different from the rest of the album, in line with the rock of the track. In the way 7th chords are placed, I continue hearing a reminescence of Beatles. Very strange, also because the fab4 have never done anything of this kind. In the second half the track goes acoustic. The melody line is full of unusual passages which add a little touch of weirdness before the final lead by the distorted guitar.

Lo Veilado(The Veiled) is driven by the keyboard's leslie and the bandoneon. It's a song about mistery. "Nobody understood, and it was good. The veiled follows his steps. DOn't ask questions to mistery. We burn our time, we are not Gods".

"New tears flood the desert.Nothing to loose. No water or thirst.Eating from this soil". This is "La Construccion del Desierto(The Making of the Desert). Alejandro says that this song represents the power of Ignorance. The tempo is obsessive. The desert is a strong image, I have always related it to Death. A very good song. At this point the listener has surely got used to the vocals, so appreciating it should now be easier. Anyway this is an album that requires headphones and the right attitude. The Gilmouresque guitar solo over the vibrato keys is very nice and this song reminds me to the atmosphere of "The Trial" from The Wall.

Finally the epic. Google translates "Pertenencia" with "Membership", but literally it means "Belonging to something". About 25 minutes divided in 4 sections: Ser(To Be), Hacer(To Do), Someter(To Submit) and Parecer(To look like). It's a Crimsonian kind of song with very intense lyrics each line is descriptive and can live on its own. The instrumental interludes between the parts are excellent, very well composed, played and arranged. The four parts seem to be consequential in terms of lyrics. Anyway I won't describe the 25 minutes. Let's just say that it goes through different moments, but the darkness behind is always present.

A 4-stars album but it requires the right mood, moment and logistic.

The power of good music

La Potestad is the fifth album by Alejandro Matos, a multi-instrumentalist hailing from Buenos Aires. I became familiar with his music in 2010, when I reviewed his two last albums, the decent Persona and the excellent Freak. Six years after the release of Freak, he returns with La Potestad.

La Potestad is, as I have been informed, a concept album about power. Not power in the political, military or economic, but power as a way to feel good: the powers of truth (Cazadioses), innocence (Angel), obstinacy (Anclas), mystery (Lo Velado) and ignorance (La Construcci'n del Desierto), and power as something inevitable (Potestades). These lyrics are hard to get into, even for someone who masters the Spanish language, I think. They are very cryptic and metaphorical and speak in often desolate images.

The music on this album continues the line of the previous albums. The progress from Persona to Freak has been continued. Where Persona had a very basic instrumentation and was mostly guitar-oriented, Freak has some more. The same can be said of the quality of the compositions. On La Potestad, some unconventional instruments like the bandoneon, the theremin and the clarinet enter the scene. The compositions are dense, rich and melodic on this album. Alejandro does not play almost everything all by himself; he is accompanied by a drummer, a bass player and some other musicians. His musical inflences are varied: from Van der Graaf Generator and Pink Floyd to Argentinian styles and classical music, combined in a very personal, eclectic blend.

When I heard La Potestad for the first time, it felt like a birthday present I was very happy with. Though I had little time, I was too curious to leave it for one or two days. After each track I longed for the next one and when the first spin was completed, it was good.

The album opens with Escindido (Isolated), which is somewhat reminiscent of Invernadero de Preguntas on his previous album: some ununderstandable talking in anglophonic gibberish, accompanied by an electric piano. After two minutes and a half, it ends abruptly and Cazadioses kicks in.

Potestades has a bandoneon solo which adds some couleur locale to this track. Recommended to queen Máxima for the occasion. Angel has acoustic guitar and ends with a 2.5 minute theremin solo, which makes it one of my favourite tracks on the album. Anclas is a heavier, rocking 9 minute track with a Gilmouresque guitar solo, a quieter middle section which becomes even symphonic when a mellotron kicks in. Thanks to some twists at the right moments, this track remains interesting to listen to. Lo Velado sounds more light-hearted with bandoneon and clarinet.

Hereafter the album becomes darker with the heavy, pounding La Construcción del Desierto. This is another favourite of mine. A difference of 95 degrees of latitude cannot keep me away from thinking of Anekdoten somehow. The guitar solo reminds me of Genesis' Fly on a Windshield.

The album ends with a dark epic, Pertenencia, the third of my favourite tracks, which clocks out at almost 25 minutes. After El Infierno de los Buenos, this is the second proof of Alejandro's talent to write masterpiece epics. This epic is a brilliant composition and goes through different styles and moods: a light and jazzy piano, a screaming guitar solo and in the last section it sounds almost classic with strong King Crimson references. Alejandro describes the lyrical theme as the ways in which someone can have the powers mentioned above. Yet I feel free - or impertinent - to give my own interpretation, based on the title of the epic and the four parts in which it is divided: Pertenencia (belonging) has the sections Ser (to be), Hacer (to act), Someter (to submit) and Parecer (to resemble). This makes me think of a sequence of an individual who abandons his individuality to belong to a group.

But there is one more power. One that does not need to be mentioned on the album because it is omnipresent from the start until the end, the power that defies language barriers: the power of good music. This is what makes La Potestad one of the best releases from the year of long awaited albums and lifts it up to a five star rating and an appropriate place in my top 5 of 2015.

Argentinian composer and musician Alejandro MATOS first appeared as a solo artist back in 2000 with his debut album "Lo Que Qeda", although outside of Argentina he remained a relative unknown until his third album "Persona" appeared back in 2006. He has released a further two solo albums since then, and "La Potestad" from 2015 is the most recent of these, and as the case with all his solo albums so far, at least to my knowledge, this album was self released.

If your taste in progressive rock goes towards artists that conjure moods and atmospheres with qualities that can be described as haunting and ominous is to your liking, where the main contrasting cuts merits a description as melancholic, mournful and even ghostly and chilling on occasion sounds like seasoning that will suit you perfectly, then you should take note of this album and take the time to give it an inspection.