Las Historias
s/t

“it’s just not music, it’s a hair-raising experience” is how the press text for this album ends, not a bad sales pitch. But is it true? I wouldn’t say that it looks that way from seeing the cover, but the cover isn’t everything and the Argentinian trio Las Historias might have something exciting up their sleeve for this self-titled debut album. It is clear that they have a short album, 31 minutes split into only five tracks – it is quite uncommon that bands keep it that short but it is actually the same EP the band released themselves earlier this year, now with one additional track and on a label for physical releases as well.

In the same press material that I referred to earlier it is claimed that they have stratospheric guitars like Jimi Hendrix and funeral riffs of Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard, some sixties bluesy psychedelia. That is a pretty decent frame of reference as it fits that kind of style with psychedelic stoner doom or fuzz, things like that is all way to label this band. They do that kind of thing and doesn’t really venture out on any really hair-raising adventures. The music is quite slow but pretty heavy, mainly instrumental where the vocals doesn’t take up much space or grab your attention. I don’t think the vocals are very good, and the production feels like something from a distant past so if they were looking to sound like something historic, they managed quite well – otherwise the production as a big failure.

This album doesn’t sound very interesting at all, it feels long despite 31 minutes playing time and I feel myself loosing interest quite quickly. The album isn’t particularly exciting as it offers nothing really fresh or exciting and lacks the depth it should have needed to really work for me. The songs also feel tired and not very interesting, it is a rather dull album from a band that doesn’t seem to know where they want to go, and they end up going nowhere. The positive is probably that the songs aren’t terrible and that no one was tempted to add more songs as that would have been nearing torture.

I don’t really know what they were looking to accomplish with this album as it feels just uneventful and like it offers nothing. It feels like a waste of resources to make physical copies of albums like this, albums that doesn’t offer anything fresh or exciting, or good. There are just so many better albums out there, some that actually are hair-raising in a positive and not a negative way, so why should anyone select this album ahead of those? I cannot really see any reason at all.

HHHHHHH