QUANTIZATION PROCLAMATION, ALBUMDelhotel, México ***
Rating: 65
By Carlos Reyes
We got introduced to Album very recently; they are a direct outcome of our thirst to find more music in the likes of Monterrey’s grandeurs En Ventura and Bam Bam. We quickly realized that Album was a major force in the new wave; some of our favorite music bloggers around were placing it very high on their year-ending lists, with all merit, Cancer Baby is a stunning winner. All this momentum crumbled as the band had supposedly split, we’re glad they only took a break to work on their many side projects. As you can see, the expectancy for their new EP Quantization Proclamation was far above the ground, it’s an album I really wanted to like and it’s quite good, but still a feeling of discontent does pop up considering how great the previous work was. High on mechanism, this is has the feeling of a political proclamation with no clear course, something quite parallel to reality, but the intended musical reform this EP aims for never actually works. More than exploring sound, Album tries to give it a shape pushing melody away and relying on virtual patterns; this is where electronic rock dances with experimentalism and leaves more than one ‘huh’ to its alienated listener. “No Diga Eso” succeeds above the rest for its hyper multi-layered lasers, the collapsed wavelengths of sound collapsing one another and the unifying vocals serving as round borders. It’s those same vocals that damage the next song “Jesus Quantizo Mi Beatbox”, the voices distort and displace any direction line the music is willing to go, harming the otherwise splendid music. It’s rather funny the title track mentions that “nothing happens if you don’t record voices”, this piece in particular is like the band is thinking out loud and that brings everything closer to the eye. One last track, when everything seemed to slide in middling evenness a last piece shows up and it’s a dazzling piece, “Adivinar” disassociates itself from the album’s flaws almost to the point of rewriting the proclamation to a moment of transportive cuteness.