OLUM

DE CRONOPIOS from Argentina is consisting of four prog rebels, namely Guido, Damian, Sebastian and Federico. While filled with a bunch of ideas as well as spiked with a couple of twists and turns they have produced a really noteworthy debut album in 2012. The music is predominantly psychedelic tinged, but they are offering a lot more, which finally tends to an eclectic approach for sure. Stylistically they do not leave anything out here, next to nothing. Additionally sense of humour is to state indeed.

Just to mention the song No Blues where it all - surprisingly or not - begins (and ends) with a typical blues theme, but soon switches into something jazzy somehow - even a triphop feel comes up within. Eh ... really irritating but nevertheless an enjoyable exemplar - bravo! Punchy bass and drums, playful organ/piano and guitar - this is really amazing all the way through. You immediately can notice that they are rather prolific musicians.

Twelve compact songs are given, where two of them form the instrumental Oneironautas suite with a length of nearly twelve minutes. This one may be inspired by the Selknams rituals that occurred in the South Argentinian region of Tierra del Fuego, prior to colonization. Ambient hallucinative soundscapes are ensuing, combined with creepy speech samples. This is surviving for some minutes until the band gradually starts the engines, which finally leads into an intriguing space rock jam ... not the end of the story anyhow, believe me. There's no need to give away more, I hope you're curious a bit, just check this suite out on your own.

This applies to the next one I would like to mention in the same way, I mean the tricky Sinestesia, nearly impossible to describe what's goin' on here - simply a masterpiece of song-writing. The jazz rocker Frapu is equipped with moments which I would describe as Zeuhl inspired. Acoustic sections like Gigantes Dormitan are also offered where the native vocals are fitting at best. Now this might be enough to make it clear - 'Olum' represents experimental approach and 60 minutes filled with entertainment pure on top of it - prog fan, please do not ignore this - 4.5 stars.