GutterPutter

No one knew who Anno Solar was nor the exact background of each of its members. They were founded in 2023 by four artists from Spain who have a bit of experience in experimental music. Before the 27th of March of 2025, they had released no singles nor an EP. It’s almost entirely silent on their side aside from how on that very day, Una mancha de sol was released with almost no reaction from the public side. Here are a bunch of strangers whom no one knows of beforehand under any kind of scene whatsoever. If you dare to try and look them up on Bandcamp, their individual support is sparse with drummer Pau “Rxy” (or “Club Penguin BDSM Party”) Calderón’s account being inaccessible. The bassist Mario Pytark, also known through his alias of “m”, and Cristian Nik Ballester have their profile up if anyone’s curious to dig through their overlooked discography.

Una mancha de sol is an album that seems to revel in its obscurity. It’s not like Hesse Kessel where it has a clear influence that lends itself already to attract fans who are into a similar direction in musical style. This one would comparatively only drag in fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Things Falling Apart as it’s a post-rock album. Even if it’s one that is deranged. What suspecting listeners do get a glimpse of however is that within the album is the call of the apocalypse, one that is heralded by the ancient bard after the discovery comes that the end draws near. It’s a very drone-driven album with scratchy feedback, dissonances that would make you feel uncomfortable, and an array of atonal riffs that prevail throughout the six sections. Had it been made in New York City rather than in Valencia, you would think that No Wave is back in full force.

The album instead is one that sets its attention on tension. I’ve already mentioned that it uses droning a lot and while it doesn’t swallow the entire music, it relies on it for its crescendo to have an eerie effect on the listener. ‘Un hilo de sangre’ and ‘Una mancha de sol’ respectively sought to build on it through the percussion and the sample of choral music. For the former track, the chiming of the bells contrasts with the untuned gliding of the guitar which creates the impression of the sacred unfolding in response to the cracks of the unnatural. The latter’s differing emphasis portrays a funereal end to the presence of religion which gets buried deep within the heavy and abrasive reverbs of the guitar. There appears to be a subliminal sense of commentary on hedonism given how the reverbs tend to have the capability to excite others in genres like Shoegaze. Here, it’s akin to death charging to the thunders of the cymbals.

It’s fun for me to describe Una mancha de sol in a literary or poetic manner because I do feel that there are some signs of serious artistic ambition that are worth appreciating. Yet, it is in this implicit vision that it feels nihilistic to a fault. There is no hope whatsoever nor are there any room to breathe. ‘Eterna vigilia’ marks the closest we get to hearing vocals which consist entirely of screaming. It tries to fit with the slow and methodical hit of the snares and the gradually sloppy playing of the guitar riff. While the instrumentation in the section is passable as it fails to hit the eeriness of the past two sections, the screaming makes the effort too overdone.  That gets flipped on the other end with ‘Animales obscenos’ where the drumming and the riffing goes feral. Without the protection offered by the screams, all is free to do as they please.

Or so you’d wish. By the time you reach ‘Los ojos abiertos’, the jig is up and you are now much more aware of the tropes that went into Una mancha de sol. The dissonant tunes, once discomforting, is now the new normal with its screeches and the maniacal style of drumming now feels more like a technical showoff than it does the breakdown of society. It would have been considerably more effective had the use of choral music samples appear much more often to symbolise the moral downfall from grace. Now, it’s all crescendos with smears of ugly out-of-tune notes to weird listeners out. The novelty wears off entirely by the final section in ‘Firme debocación’ which at least breaks away from the structure through the alteration between high-tempo aggressive playing and the drone of the guitar note in the last three or so minutes.

In listening to Una mancha de sol, I do feel that there’s a lot of credit that is worth giving to for the way that it sought to scare through its claustrophobic mixing of its instruments. It doesn’t exactly carry itself well throughout its runtime however and as a record that is run entirely by its instrumentals, it tires out before it could afford to leave you stunned at the last hurdle. Some might think about someone like Parannoul as an example of someone who doesn’t change much in their song structures, but they turn towards other aspects of songwriting like lyricism, a maximalist array of sound, or a more flexible approach towards production to make each of their songs stand out and have its own kind of identity. Even with another post-rock band like Tortoise for a broad comparison within the genre, the main instruments of choice would see its use be adapted for each track which gives them a bit more life.

Thus, Una mancha de sol is a good enough debut from the band that has shown the potential to put out more horror-driven projects in the future. While they have shown a good understanding on what makes noise rock click with its neighbouring counterparts like industrial rock or drone, they have failed to go wild in experimenting with it. Barring the genuinely unnerving samples of the choral singing, the record is more like a good jumpscare that would leave you spooked for a while without making you develop a phobia or a food for thought. Aficionados of scary music would find this a joy even if its lack of visceral maximalism prove itself to be a damning barrier.

 3.2/5