ECLIPSE by GUILLERMO SEXO
— Distant Star —
— Insomnia —
— Confidence Beams —
— Eclipse —
— Vision Owl —
— Hyperconscious —
— Graffiti Sky —
— True Shell —
— Violet Inside —
— Heavy Shadows —
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MDRF034 | April 2016 | 45:00 | Full-Length Digital Download
Guillermo Sexo’s Eclipse is the band’s 6th record. “Over five records, they’ve fleshed out their lush sound, building eclectic anthems with layered guitar work and moody vocals. Vocalist Noell Dorsey floats serenely over the jangling guitar chords and shimmering riffs. As the album title implies, there’s a cosmic vibe… smoothly applied reverb cascading over cymbals that explode like tiny stars. It’d be the perfect soundtrack for surfing through distant galaxies.” (Consequence of Sound)
The band’s previous effort, “Dark Spring,” (2013) marked the band’s debut on the Boston/Brooklyn label Midriff Records; of which Clicky Clicky Music Blog called an album that “crackles with vitality.” Dark Spring appeared on various Best Of Year lists, toured, and made appearances in three music festivals — Together Fest, Boston Fuzztival, and the Rock and Roll Rumble.
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Boston psych-pop veterans Guillermo Sexo returned last week with Eclipse, a cool but reliably electrifying sixth set that presents more focused, yet more expansive-feeling jams. Despite 2016 being the band's 10th year, the long-playing record -- the band's second with Boston and New York-based Midriff Records -- surprises with its further refinement of Guillermo Sexo's signature sound, and delivers a closer binding of intent, theme, and instrumentation.
Eclipse (paradoxically, given its name) reveals a thriving quintet more strongly embracing space rock -- and the reverberant space surrounding it. While the sonic signifiers -- the reverb, the glistening guitar tones, and so forth -- are all there, the album even addresses space thematically: songs like the rousing opener "Distant Star," "Eclipse," and the wonderful video for "Graffiti Sky" not only convey a sense of romance and adventure, but also underscore that on the new record, more so than on prior efforts, space is the place. So the rugged edge of the band's punkier past -- as captured on 2006's Oh Wow -- is smoothed away; the charming English folk influence manifested at least as far back as the haunting "Settle Down" from the band's terrific 2010 LP Vivid Nights is played down. Even the delicious fuzz that powered 2013's Dark Spring is on the new record reserved for strategic moments. There it is, driving the ripping response sections countering the siren call of co-fronter Noelle Dorsey's vocals in album highlight "Vision Owl," there it is, again, in the thrilling conclusions of that song and the corking closer "Heavy Shadows."
Songs such as the cool "True Shell" -- whose ambient opening feels indebted to Dark Side-era Pink Floyd -- float in clean, airy reverbs conjured in Boston-area studio 1867's massive 50 x 50 x 30 live room. Focusing more intently on space rock isn't the only way Guillermo Sexo consolidates its sound on Eclipse. That yen is also manifested in the arrangements of its 10 tunes. Indeed, the record proffers tighter compositions -- for the first time since 2011's Secret Wild, no track exceeds the five-minutes-and-change mark. And so, far from stifling the Guillermo Sexo sound, its core elements -- bandleader Reuben Bettsak and guitarist Richard Murillo's dueling guitars, Noelle Dorsey's otherworldly vocals, the throbbing rhythm section -- feel in full bloom within the more concise settings (another paradox?). That said, the LP's most anthemic tune, the sparkling stand-out "Hyperconscious" -- which if memory serves was given a mind-bendingly good live airing last July at Great Scott -- is longer than five minutes, and wouldn't suffer a bit if its brilliant 75-second coda went several more. — Jay Breitling, Clicky Clicky