salamander

Salamander, Bent Hemlock (Camera Obscura, 2005)

Cuarto disco del psicodélico animal predilecto de f., para esta ocasión su místico space-rock se dibuja en base folk, una delicia, pero Red Mantra es inamovible, dios me encantan. Os dejo la reseña de psych-folk:

Salamander has refocused their ideas of their band, still with a recognisable dissection. Separate talents now bring forward their own ideas with their own aspects, also changing the original compositional focus. More of these tracks are singer-songwriter based. The still recognisable Salamander sound gives them some kind of droning psychedelic effect, (succesful and driven on tracks like "Hail") only two times perhaps a bit more than I would prefer because this could also mean moments of “distortion” in the atmosphere, which is a bit blurry on "Portal" (with lots of guitar strumming) or “Ascension”, or tiring on “Call of the hills”, but I guess it was often a compromise to have a consistence effect in the recording, otherwise all these different ideas might have fallen apart a bit. Because Salamander stylistically went for a psych-folk territory, the mix of songs here doesn’t always fit too well with that direction and compositionally does not always best serve that focus. The new directions it opens up are here, and there still a bit young and does not always succeed in convincing me. There are simply too many differences which haven’t got enough independent strength to do so. I enjoyed most especially the first half of the album, and am still curious how the other directions will envolver in the future.

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