Tito & Tarantula
Back Into The Darkness

THE REVIEW

"…When I sing
I'm not a singer
And when I dance
I ain't a dancer
When I cry
I'm not a cryer
And when I lie
I ain't a liar…"

Listening to the first track "Come Out Clean" from "Into The Darkness" by Tito & Tarantula, I'm reminded of whiskey, cigars, and a '67 black Mustang speeding wildly pursued by a multitude of squad cars, along those endless roads that cut through the desert like scars marking the advance of the white man, bringer of mediocrity and bourgeoisie in a vain attempt to civilize those wild, predatory, and whorish lands in their apparent stillness… Deadly.

A splendid album where everything moves seductively, in that psychedelic bite born from that damned Steven Medina Hufsteter and his guitar, venomous as a scorpion, hidden from the sun in that scorching desert, ready to strike and experiment in a warm and full sound, of typically blues extraction that knows how to blend into an insane and innovative psychedelic acid rock, delirious and visionary.
A sound lost in a lysergic need to draw new sounds from those desolate lands that quickly learn to soil themselves with those sounds, sometimes metal, just as a pair of boots would when striking desert ground.

Thirteen tracks in an album is not few, and thinking they are all masterpieces is even more foolish, but this album leaves a mark, there are no damn shitty tracks that you'd say, “they should have shoved that one”, forgive the coarse language but I just got out of the Mustang, but I reiterate that this album is a blast, damn it!!

The voice of Tito sounds like that of someone who just finished off a bottle of Tequila and, hoarse from an entire pack of Marlboro reds, sings with a muffled and veiled voice, as if to soften the harsh wild asperities of Hufsteter.

In my opinion, the nostalgic and evocative "Pretty Wasted", "Like I Do" stand out, at times so damnably Hendrixian, reminiscent of those crimson sunsets warming the Grand Canyons of Colorado.
The psychedelic "Dust And Ashes", "The End Of Everything", "Machete" and "In My Car", dictated by an impervious psychedelic acid rock tainted with metal, so orographically out of place and far from our reality, made of hedonistic social conventions, that wouldn't find room even if you paid for it.

If you thought these gentlemen, masters of a desert far from the commercial clichés made of clean and very (too) trendy-very-funky lounge bars, were buried along with a Tarantino film, well, you were wrong.
The album, close to being a pearl, further distinguished by a closing ballad, nothing short of splendid, "Not Enough" (I wouldn't have words to describe it, I just ask you to listen to it…), presents a mature band that has the guts to face the mainstream, without melting in the sun, as any band risen to fame only because connected to a cult-movie would… Cheers!