I get a lot of Promo emails. I mean ... dozens every week. And my god are there are lot of "singer-songwriter" types out there. And did you know that there are lots of people still making improv jazz records? I honestly thought that trend had died, but i get notifications about a new one every few weeks...
What i am saying here is that i agree with Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.
So it is very rare that a promo request grabs me in a really visceral way, and that brings me to Mirror Revelations mid-2023 debut record, and specifically to the song Amoenus, which their promotional company shared with me via a YouTube clip.
It starts with a whining distorted sound, and then a Beat comes in, not some simple drum and bass thing, but a monotonous, steady, motorik Beat with a driving bass riff. They layer in some spacey keys for a moment, and then someone stomps a distortion pedal and there is guitar mess all over the place. It's loud and noisy and glorious, like the halfway point between Neu! and Spaceman 3, like A Place to Busy Strangers at their most focused.
The song goes on from there, a glorious mess for just over five minutes, with that BEAT driving it along, and the guitar, a mess of distortion, as Gabriela Alcalá sings, bored, unimpressed with the chaos happening around her.
Wow!
I had to hear more, so i downloaded the promo, and the whole record is great, if you like this sort of steady monotonous beats and overdriven guitar noise kind of thing. And, well, that is exactly what i like.
Where have Mirror Revelations been all of my life? Well, this is a new band of two members: Gabriela Alcalá and Alam Castillo. They are from the town of Toluca, Mexico, which is in the mountains west of Mexico City. They have been releasing songs online since late 2021, and Aura collects those songs, adds a few new ones, and puts it all in one convenient package.
I liked the promo so much that i ordered the vinyl record from the band, which comes in a nice green and black splattered vinyl. It sounds great played LOUD on my stereo...
Aura kicks off with a wash wash of synths, meandering in some strange journey. The song is called The Wave and it is an ominous, gothy start to the proceedings. This flows into Amoenus, about which i cannot say enough good things (just go watch the video!)
When that beat stops, we have a brief pause between songs, then a different beat comes in for Lighthouse. The keys are spacey and more prominent than on the previous tune, which seemed to be more guitar driven. Here, the guitar wails as the keys take the lead.
The keys are more droning and the guitar overdriven on El Vehículo de las Transformaciones, the voice echoed to hell and back and wavering in the background.
Aura starts out lethargic, the beat slow and the guitar lost in the fuzz... Then it fades and a really frantic beat comes in, clattering all over the place as the guitar grinds under a Jesus & Mary Chain level of feedback.
Mirror Revelations let us relax a bit after the fury of the last few tunes with the ambient interlude Las Creaciones de la Existencia. The guitar here is languid and Yellow6-ish as the keys create a faint haze. They do this kind of slow stuff very well.
They channel MØAA on Break The Circles, toning down their Krautish elements for keyboardy goth with echoed female vocals. I like the languid beat here, and the guitar really works. They follow this with a more industrial ambient tune, Mar Adentro. This is drone and haze and vocals lost in the background.
But the powerful beat is back for closer El Portal. The bass positively throbs under distortion, and the keys drone. This is a nice, noisy conclusion to the record.
I really like what Mirror Revelation are doing. Then again, it is kind of fine tuned to what i like... Still, if you like noisy, vaguely goth rock with strong rhythms and gobs of feedback, this band is worth checking out.
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