Artist: Hesus Attor
Label: Moonlee Records
Release: 2008
Runtime: 38:44
Rating: 3.5/5
Hesus Attor are a new musical phenomenon out of Rijeka, Croatia, and with their arrival on the scene they only confirm the historic greatness and importance of that city when it comes to rock culture. I won’t be modest. In a global sense. At its core, this band is thoroughly avant-garde and provocative in every way, and in a manner that’s not for just any pair of ears. In a region of consistently high-quality variety, which Rijeka serves up with the wealth of its bands and always has, Hesus Attor occupy a truly special spot in the musical vocabulary.
The songs are jigsaw puzzles of motif sequences glued together, growing out of the influences of countless musical genres. “Don’t think, just play” is the final impression Hesus Attor leave you with when you spin their debut “Sonic Gastronomy Volume One”. But in the studio, the whole thing isn’t as “easy” as that feeling suggests. To glue together such a dense web of genre cross-pollination, you need serious know-how in applying mathematical empiricism. Picture a string of thrash noise riff explosions, then the pattern (can) unpredictably jump to a Latin groove, pop-style rolling, a melodic weaving-in of ethno rhythms coming from the Balkan Peninsula, as well as melodic leanings that look deep into Arabic melos, and then it can jump, again totally unpredictably, back to an unbridled eruption of metal noise. For something like that you need a highly receptive rhythm section that’s insanely elastic in the face of all sorts of musical challenges. A rhythm section constantly devoted, with love and dedication, to experimental exploration and progression. Over those patterns you lay different vocals. From death metal growls to core screaming, then you toss in animal howling, childlike narration, vocals run through a sucking-down-helium effect and so on…
The album sounds special, unique and one of a kind. Looking back across the legacy of artists over the decades, you realize this is a re-encoding of the language of the most “insane” moments of “Ummagumma” (Pink Floyd), or the unreachable genius of Frank Zappa, and onward to the newer vocabulary of artists like Mr. Bungle, Fantomas or The Dilinger Escape Plan. So Hesus Attor don’t speak the same language, sometimes just a similar one, but the same feelings of enjoying total artistic freedom of expression in music, well, those definitely don’t lie. In short, free, unrestrained experimenting, seasoned with a hefty dose of craziness that stems from self-parody and the schizoid-psychedelic brilliance of this band’s mind and intellect. In that respect, Hesus Attor have plenty of guts. Do Hesus Attor owe anything of the above to the “math rock” label? The remark isn’t exactly ”pulled out of thin air”.
There’s just one problem with this album. The songs, for all their otherwise extremely witty and brilliant fragmentation, are so frayed motif-wise that you get a sense of monotony while listening, because thanks to the repeated “daring” switches between tricks, the songs come across as very similar to each other, even though at their core they aren’t. That really wasn’t the band’s goal, but with their huge enthusiasm for seasoning their debut with the greatest possible dose of musical juiciness in the chosen sonic and rhythmic backdrops, bombarding you with massive motif variety, they unintentionally achieved exactly that effect.
So. “Sonic Gastronomy Volume One” is an excellent debut from Hesus Attor, showing a huge work ethic and a heap of sharp ideas that, thanks to the high unpredictability the album unfolds on, shock the listener at every step as they chew their way through its contents. This is a band that’s only now sailing toward the zenith of its musical output. Based on the highly creative enthusiasm of the debut, we can expect an even more clearly defined successor down the road. There’s one more feeling we can’t shake on this album, and it speaks in favor of this band’s exceptional talent. The feeling that Hesus Attor are in all likelihood a real treat live. So this is an album for everyone who delusionally couldn’t care less about any rules. Like pulling gloves onto your feet and shoes onto your hands! Music gourmets, take note: Hesus Attor can tickle you in a seriously contagious way.
Lineup
El Cathedralico – vocals
Juan Pablo Pe De Rigad – guitar
Senor Jose – bass
Digitus – drums
Production
Uroš Vele & Hesus Attor
Tracklist
01. Alice Road
02. Cahracack
03. Guatemala Dreaming
04. Chasm
05. La Hesusaracha
06. Elizabeth Z. Herman
07. Trl t t t…
08. Arbeit
09. Nelson
10. He-Bill Eviskus
11. Nabroflex
12. Schwinnland Schwinnland
13. Petrosimul
