Psychic Equalizer 2025
Embracing atomic magnificence, Torrelavega collective elevate empirical perils to new levels of social involvement.
Prologue To Insurrection
Almost from the start of their existence, this Spanish ensemble inhabited a special sonic space, with ever-expansive progressive rock elements serving as vehicle for emotional issues the musicians steadfastly refused to abandon in favor of hifalutin concepts. Their political stance has rarely come to the fore of the band’s albums, and still, listening between the lines, as devised by composer Hugo Selles, felt revelatory at times. Much less cryptic than its predecessors, “Prologue To Insurrection” is also less open to interpretation in terms of lyrics that focus on human follies which allowed the world to go tragically astray and on the resulting guilt. The players emphasized such a change in their approach by splitting their previously solid arrangements into more conspicuous stylistic components, yet what could ruin the group’s identity exposed people’s vulnerability and resilience through melodic means in most touching manner.
With opera and metal made frontal now, even though the two genres hardly blend here, the collective deliver a powerful punch – because these five pieces are possessed of breathtakingly orchestrated dynamics and because sentimental layer of cuts like riff-driven, spectacularly stumbling opener “Centuries” seems impossible to ignore – that achieves its full sway in the record’s second half, occupied entirely by a drama of epic proportions. A tribute to those who perished in the Reocín Mine accident in 1960, hushed by the Franco government and largely unknown even today, the 22 minutes of “Luciana” – where Saray Riaño’s vocals scale vertiginous heights and plumb immense depths, before acoustic ripples of Hugh’s piano and Carlos Barragán’s guitars weave a series of exquisite solos – are staggering, if devoid of anger which “Leaders” is full of. Channeled through the contrast the impressively dense six-string assault and oratorio-esque wall of voices, as well as a tsunami of Selles’ synthesizers and Sergio Azcona’s stormy drums, sculpt in great detail, the waves of rage attack the ether aggressively, yet infectiously too, picked up subsequently by the throbbing “Tremors” where keyboards and ghostly spoken word battle histrionic heaviness.
And then there’s “Life Will Never Shine On Me” to lift the veil via non-verbal, instrumental balladry and delicately soaring passages which precede Saray’s ruminative stanzas and direct the flow towards celestial recital. Yes, this album is dark – but isn’t darkness the place for riotous possibilities probabilities to lurk ready to pounce upon the unsuspecting punter? The expectancy of a chance: that’s what it’s all about.
*****
