SOLAR GAMBLING

I think this is the first Omar album with Mexican singer Ximena Sarinana Rivera. Don't even know if she was his girlfriend yet. Her singing is not bad here, she gets better on later albums. I have never heard her solo stuff. Solar Gambling features some cool cover artwork; Omar's album covers have gotten more interesting over the past 500 albums. The music here is typical solo Omar. Similar to most of his latest albums with Ximena.

"Locomocion Capilar" is a good opener. This song sounds very much like The Mars Volta. The last half of "Las Flores Con Limon" is better than the first half. "Colmillo Castrado" is basically slowed down guitar effects. "Poincare" is a nice song with piano and vocals. Some echoed vocal effects. There's a weird effect, not sure what it's called, at the end. "Los Tentaculos De La Libelula" is just more guitar effects. "Miel Del Ojo" is not a bad song, but has some annoying noisy parts. "Lorentz" is basically piano and acoustic upright bass. Some guitar effects.

"Vasco Da Gama" is the last and best song. Named after a famous Portugese explorer(if memory serves). Nice symphonic string-synths here. I like Ximena's double-tracked vocals during the 'chorus' part. Good drumming in this song. Gets noisy at the end. Not a bad album at all. I thought Omar's early releases were all over the place and very hit or miss. It seems some of the 3000 albums he's released in the past two years are far more consistent. 3 stars.