Don Caballero
Don Caballero 2

Elegantly difficult. Apparently impenetrable in their mathematical magniloquence. Incredibly powerful. Seismic shocks embedded within titanic geometries. This is what Don Caballero represent in this wonderful album dated 1995 (just the publication date makes me shudder...).

It's their second work after "For Respect" from '93 which, despite being tied to stoner/metal (albeit deviant) styles, had already outlined the unique sound of the Pittsburgh band: unparalleled rhythmic power, technical and compositional abilities beyond the norm, but above all, creativity that oozed from every pore (a double entendre for Tuscans like me...). Here they unleash everything (and more) in an instrumental and furious manner. The sound seems more analytical despite not lacking chaotic and noisy tendencies. The psychedelic side so prominent in "For Respect" hasn't dissolved but is felt here, drowning inseparably into the music itself.
"Stupid Puma" literally overwhelms the listener with a force and style that isn't heavy, isn't free-jazz, isn't grind, but an impressive blend of all these genres. The avant-garde extremes of "Please Tokyo, Please This Is Tokyo" never seem out of place, instead, they're melodic refrains that lead to a trance state through pauses, breaks, and assorted noises. Everything coexists naturally among dissonant figures and tempo changes until the apocalyptic finale with a circular saw at maximum volume and a colossal distortion stretched for eternity.
"Dick Suffers Is Furious With You" is over three minutes of pure and adrenalinic melee assault where the most intricate King Crimson intersects with jazz/grind-noise textures always with thick, full, and saturated guitars chasing each other madly and Damon Che on drums leading the rhythm, ranging more than any other human can. "Cold Knees (in April)" is perfect in its authoritative and exhausting pace, 11 minutes escaping into the unknown, here too with guitars that stretch and distort into a swirling, crushing sonic vortex, from which you are spat out as if by magic into the liberating finale. The album continues like this with jagged yet monumental songs ("P,P,P antless"), true mutant rides fading into pastel-colored landscapes ("Rollerblade Success Theory"), up to a declared tribute to the Crimson King ("Repeat Defender").

Almost without noticing, we find ourselves inside the amorphous and stunning "No One Gives a Hoot About a Faux-ass Non Sense", a slovenly and surreal jazz-rock that hints (not clearly, to be honest!) at how the group's sound would evolve. A sort of programmatic manifesto of how Don Caballero would evolve in the coming years, into a more serene and tranquil yet alien and unpredictable creature. Here, instead, prisoners of a mad journey along a hypothetical video magnetic tape, "ours" manipulate an endless sequence of fast-forward/rewind, projecting scenarios now steeped in syncopated and hyper-distorted metallic riffs, now dissolving into dark noise spaces, leaving in any case the eyes of the unsuspecting listener bleeding. Acoustic interludes that are almost always preludes to epileptic contortions between insane rhythms and majestic distortions. All creating a fantastical and brainiac landscape, compositionally fractured and intriguing.

This album has always been, rightly or wrongly, defined as the cornerstone of math-rock. Every time with these damn crappy classifications.... "Don Caballero 2" is pure (rock) catharsis. Let it completely overwhelm you.

Period.