The Grand Astoria x Montenegro – The Grand Astoria x Montenegro

This is a split album that represents very well the past historic influences of Metal. If I may, Metal is the evolution of some 1960s musical movements inside rock which are heavy rock, acid rock, and psychedelic rock. All of them were known by the massive use of distorted guitars and by the extensive care to instrumentals. Metal inherited those features as well as uncommon and gritty vocals full of rage. Those musical movements inside rock were in some way against the tide of the flower power. The Vietnam War showed the world all the contradiction of the hippie flower power movement due to its violence and controversies as enlisting proportionally more minorities youngsters than white. Metal stood against the hypocrisy that was a rule into society. Metal was the rebellion into the rebellion – Hum, I guess I’ve already said that, but it doesn’t matter at all.

The Grand Astoria and Montenegro is an album that combines perfectly all the musical anarchy that reigned in the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s when some weirdos started to meld national and folk influences into rock. Two bands, one split CD, two songs that could have been recorded by any Doom Metal band of this sad and lonely planet. They are eighteen and twenty-nine minutes longs. Montenegro do that in “El Matadero” mixing spanish musical tradition with a heavy and embodied rock. De rigueur, The Grand Astoria could be labeled as proto-metal due to the fuzzed guitars, long solos and heavy drumming. As the tradition rules, is long but no linear or monolithic. a great track to the lovers of the great music that was done in the 1960s. I’m indeed one of them. I love the sound of a fuzz pedal with its thick and solid distortion that makes the guitar screams loud and clear. It’s a pity Metal bands don’t use it more often.

The Grand Astoria with “The Body Limits” is a proto-doom Metal with its monolithic twenty-nine minute track full of effects and atmospheres. “The Body Limits” goes slowly in a crescendo to reach the top more or less in the middle of it. When I say slow crescendo, you get very slow and slight crescendo as a matter of fact. The drummer go slowly, but consistently hitting harder and harder and an angelical voice come sin to embellish the guitars that little by little are getting stronger leaving the clean lines to add the famous fuzz distortion. Around the twelfth minute, “The Body Limits” has a big change of heart leaving the intimistic beginning to get to a more regular heavy rock tune with tons of guitars. From where I’m standing it’s great to hear again all those influences that were a bit dorment. De rigueur, “The Body Limits” goes from the crescendo to reach the extasis then to return to intimistic beginning. A real musical trip as it was in the 1960s.

Click here for BandCamp.

The Grand Astoria x Montenegro was released in 2014 via Addict Label.

Track Listing:

  1. The Body Limits
  2. El Matadero

Watch