Humo Del Cairo - Humo Del Cairo (MeteorCity)

Even after numerous listens it’s hard to instantly latch on to any other track except opener ‘A Tiempo’. Being brutally honest, it’s a brute - it boasts the most lengthwise being dead on 11 minutes and starts straight in without the need of an intro that persists to prove its insignificance. It clearly has the most infectious wiry riffs and build-ups and (pardon the cliché) oozes more molten rock lava than any other piece on the album.

‘Panorama’ was set to take silver on the podium of balls-grabbing potential, scoring high on the wake-up call, no-nonsense kick-in with a riff equivalent to Argentina’s entry for The World’s Strongest Man competition. However the heaviness is not reunited at any part of the remaining eight minutes, leaving it to resemble something the Mars Volta forgot to record. Instead it can only come second in length, with the groove-laden ‘Fuego di San Antonio’ stealing the silver with much-needed continuity, a quirky time signature that fits so well it goes un-noticed, and on top of all, those barbaric ape-like howls before the heaviness that hit you like a pendulous swinging anvil (again, sorry for the cliché – it goes hand in hand with the music though, trust me on this one).

There are parts where whimsicalness is let to needlessly prevail. For example ‘Nimbo’ could have easily been written in one jam. Also in ‘Errantes’ you can imagine them engulfed and entranced in what sounds like a musical nod to Zeppelin’s ‘When The Levee Breaks’. Getting so lost in the groove of group wailing and indulgent mouth organ styling, there is no other way to execute this than the good old-fashioned fade out.

The problem with this genre sometimes is that the musicians let the music control them, rather than the other way round. This album definitely relies on the hard, solid beefier elements that tie the tunes together, which you would expect a lot of after such an alerting get-go. Although it has not been done so in this part of the world as far as knowledge goes back, much of it has indeed been done to death. Did someone mention Kyuss? Not me…