La Otracina – Reality Has Got To Die
A trio of Brooklyn hipsters making surprisingly effective stoner/doom metal—this offering gets the job done but is not particularly memorable. Their main problem is their inability to settle on any particular section of a song long enough for it to sink in with the listener (not to mention laughably goofy lyrics about the cosmos). Downtuned bluesy guitar riffs a-la Sleep or Spirit Caravan meets some psychedelic spacey weirdness drawing from Melvins and Boris significantly, as well as krautrock and Jethro Tull. Think Jex Thoth meets Flower Travellin Band, but not nearly as good as either. In fact, I’d recommend playing those bands instead, because these guys, while admittedly successful at getting one’s toes a-tappin’, bring nothing new to the table.
1. Formulaic stoner-doom (i.e. slow crushing parts contrasting with rockin’ fast parts) with some eccentricities such as mellow progressive parts and keyboards thrown into the mix.
2. Melvins-esque fast psych-metal at punk speeds leads into mid-paced stoner-psych jam suite.
3. Doom riffing doubled by halloweeny keyboards mixed with some 70s rock-ish parts that would be catchy if the band weren’t so fucking distracted and all-over-the-place. Shut the fuck up and rock, guys, srsly.
4. Harmonizing guitar riffs playing a road-trippy galloping 70s metal tune. Long jam at the end.
5. An excruciating near-20 minutes of hipster arrogance disguised as avant-garde. We get it, guys, you have a cool record collection, but whatever you’re smoking, well, it’s better out west. First half of the song is wasted on a pointless noisy intro, followed by more random jamming and unnecessary drum solos. This is why Metal Archives hasn’t acknowledged these guys as metal, with good reason.
6. Another 70s-esque galloping heavy metal tune, complete with bluesy lead guitar. Opening riff and bassline oddly similar to Metallica’s “Four Horsemen” riff. Pointless ambient/progressive interlude further exemplifies that these guys just don’t know how to plain ROCK. Goddammit.
7. This song is more on the psychedelic rock side than metal, and shows what the band could possibly be if they didn’t try so hard to be something they’re not. A krautrock-ish tune reminiscent of Neu, oddball modal riffs, cool synth parts. BEST TRACK on the album, what you’ve been waiting to hear after being disappointed by the other songs.

(Reviewed by Diego)