El Jefazo - El Jefazo (2017)
With their first studio album, the
Peruvian group of El Jefazo come out packing some mean heavy rock
with a psychedelic strain, letting their strings snarl while the
drums lay down some hard grooves. Twists into pedal effects add some
extra panache, and while they're fun little bursts, the music is
solid enough (and the band's confident enough) that they're not
allowed to rob focus from the powerful riffs, only to kick things up
when they need that boost into wilder riding.
The group keeps things instrumental for
this batch of six songs, freeing them from having to stretch measures
out to cover verses, and a lot of that freedom is used to focus on
ramping up from a base riff to a more intense form of it (my favorite
example of this being “Rio Tinto”). But the psychedelic element
is more than just some flange on the guitar; while things are
certainly heavy, they're also pretty damn spacy at times. Stuff like
the double-down grind of “Megalodonte” shifting into slow-melt
sustain shows how adept the group is at bridging those two sides, but
they use that play sparingly enough to keep it fresh when it does
arise. The expansive close-out of “El Cañón de la Eternidad”
simmers it down to a fine finish, and all around, the band's first
full LP is a satisfyingly diverse and ambitious effort, with plenty
of raw energy evidenced in the playing. Here's hoping a follow-up
emerges before too long, as I'm really curious to hear what other
ideas this group has rattling about in their strings and skulls.
~ Gabriel
For Fans Of; Frozen Planet....1969,
Gripe, Groggy, Humbaba, Persona
~
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