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Every now and then, an occasional name from Chile would manage to make its way into the radar of prospective music fans like myself. Only a few months ago in December, I wrote a capsule review on Cristóbal Avendaño’s album with Silvia Moreno to which I thought highly of as one of the very best of the year. Additionally, there’s also Nando García whose record I consider a pleasant listen although it’s more on a reserved side compared to the other one. It is not far-fetched to argue that fans of music that are done in Spanish should look into Chile to find serious deep cuts to enjoy themselves with.

One of the Chilean names that are worth looking into is Hesse Kassel. The band hails from Santiago and aside from a couple of songs released as a single alongside a split EP, there is virtually no info surrounding them. Their debut, La Brea, also has little information surrounding it like the concept. Yet, behind the fog lies one of the definite masterworks in what is only a first full-length record from a group of unknowns. Listening to it will first bring up the impressions of the band being a South American homage to Black Country, New Road especially with their debut For The First Time which is a tad bit coincidental. It is however too simplistic to write them off as imitators. After a few repeated listens to La Brea, to dismiss the band through the comparison might as well be like falling into the trap of comparing Interpol to Joy Division on the back of their post-punk basis and baritone singing. 

Start with the intro of ‘Postparto’ where, through its ten-minute runtime, it has a web-like guitar riff that is certainly reminiscent of BC,NR. Yet, its song structure relies less on slow build-up to a crescendo. Two minutes in, the riff changes to being repetitive and near-monotonic which calls into mind New York’s no-wave. Five minutes in and you’ll get whip-lashed with King Crimson’s maniacal bellowing of the drums with the horns on display. ‘Anova’ contains a hollering chant after the mournful first verse that reminds me a bit of Of Monsters and Men and the way the music builds up in the second half has the whimsicality of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinois. Then you have ‘Americana’ where the beginning feels more similar to the preceding Slint in singing and slow tempo before it segues into a Godspeed You! Black Emperor-esque blend of chamber music-styled playing and droning. There’s life to be found in La Brea.

Among one of the notable highlights that Hesse Kassel brings to the table is its lyricism. You might remember, as one example, the outspoken confessionalism of Rivers Cuomo when Weezer released Pinkerton in 1996 with his comments of “half-Japanese girls” as one example. The band focuses on right-wing reactionary feelings from young men and while it can be hard to straddle the line between genuineness and parody, I can assure you that it pays off in the end. There comes the dismissive pronoun debate on ‘Moussa’ through online means to escape from feeling worthless or the mockery of the e-celebrity in ‘En Tiempo Muerto’ when the voice is at best a “frontman digital”. Even the literal translation of the verses struggle to contain the sense of there being an unreliable narrator. In ‘Vida en Terranova’, a reference to a conspiracy theory surrounding 5G towers caused a fantasy of a family spending time together. It is difficult to picture the band being truly serious about their views when there lies an imagination of their legacy being remembered as being for the people – “Hesse Kassel!”

After the apex of unhinged banging and guitar dissonance that is ‘A. Latur’, ‘Yo La Tengo’ revealed the level of delusion the narrator has in his grandiosity. He hasn’t made his entrance in “la era de la batalla de las bandas”, he would rather match himself with an online influencer, and he finally admits to being a “mediocridad”. The instrumental in contrast is noisy and near-improvisational in how it breaks out which suggests that a level of mental instability is reaching its peak. That the voice comments about his mother feels Freudian in its parallelism to his love interest, that he implicitly dedicates his gratitude to his reliance on the phone is poignant. As the music picks up and the sprechgesang transitions to screaming, the crescendo becomes a wall of metallic screeches from the guitars and drum as if to symbolise the collapse of the “hombre tan moderno”.

La Brea should be recognised as one of the best albums of the year. Hesse Kassel’s seemingly imitative impression hides its subtle differences that allow it to thrive in its critique of young men’s growing reactionarism. Not only does its post-punk direction prove brilliant, it is nearly all-consuming in the little bits of divergences that it includes. You might find the frank lyricism or the initial similarities with BC,NR icky, but such should at best be minor issues in listening to the album. It is a gem and it is one that I highly recommend to fans of post-punk and post-rock music.

4.6/5