Last we heard from La Otracina, Adam Kriney and company had just released the fantastic The Risk Of Gravitation on Holy Mountain. That record was a space-rock fan’s dream. White noise jams, cosmic guitar noodling and — for the first time on a La Otracina album — vocals sung by Kriney. The combination of monstrous psych and vocals suited the band well. And since The Risk Of Gravitation was labeled a “mini album,” we knew a full-length would arrive shortly. It’s been a year, but the double-album Reality Has Got To Die arrived in my mailbox in early October, and I’ve been digging it a lot of late.
The album commences with “Hail Fire,” and it doesn’t take more than a minute to notice a huge departure in the band’s sound. Goodbye white noise, hello riffs. The track sounds like it would fit in perfectly on a Melvins record. “Raze The Sky” has been included on this record, and the song is weighed down by some massive low-end guitars. Kriney still sounds like a cross between Ethan Miller (Comets On Fire) and Asahito Nanjo (High Rise) here, but his voice takes a back seat (a way back seat) to endless, searing guitar leads and brutal drumming. There’s a short reprieve from the heaviness where bassist/bartione guitarist Evan Sobel and guitarist Philippe Ortanez get to explore…but just as you think you’re coming to the apex of their kosmiche voyage, the riffs return and the song closes with a frenetic energy that is unique in the modern space rock scene. Ancestors might be the only other band who comes to mind when I think of super-intense psych jams. Way cool. Way far-out.
“Crystal Wizards Of The Cosmic Weird” — another track off The Risk Of Gravitation — is a killer jam. Labored, droning, powerful, with just a touch of King Crimson experimenting bringing the whole structure to the brink of collapse. Kriney’s seemingly endless drum rolls and jazzy inflections play the perfect base upon which the bass and guitars can wander.
The centerpiece of the double-album has to be the 19-minute opus from which the album’s name is derived. The whole thing is pure experimentation. It’s ambient, it’s avant-garde, it’s minimalist, it’s free jazz…it’s the entire spectrum of the band’s sound tied together in one (albeit lengthy) bow. It could be an EP on its own and stand as one of the coolest one-sided discs released in 2010. “Reality Has Got To Die” is most definitely my kind of music. “We Ride On” combines the aforementioned King Crimson sound with a touch of Tangerine Dream and deep, bottom-end Melvins riffs. “Mass Meteoric Mind” is the motorik-influenced closing track, with some beautiful synthesizer melodies intertwining with the guitar and bass. If the purpose of including this as the album’s farewell is to infer that this is the future of the La Otracina sound, it is giddying.
The only thing better than listening to La Otracina is following the exploits of Adam Kriney on Facebook. That guy goes off hard. One of these days I’m going to have to catch up with him and chat about his band, drugs, and politics. Until then, I’ll leave you with some La Otracina to enjoy.
Reality Has Got To Die, the new album from La Otracina, is available now on CD and Double-LP from Holy Mountain.
Listen To “Hail Fire”
Listen To “Mass Meteoric Mind”
Image courtesy of Holy Mountain
