If any album this year is vying to carry the torch of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” for best-played alongside a muted version of Wizard of Oz, it’s Tecuciztecatl, the fourteenth studio album from psychedelic veteran group His Name is Alive. The press release describes their sound as a “horror movie vibe” that comes “straight out of a bubble gum prog machine.” Yeah. It’s also a true rock-opera, complete with a storyline involving demonic fetus twins and exorcism-practising librarians. As such, there are plenty of old-school sixties rhythms, dribbled percussion, layers of flutey nonsense, and vocals both mystical and airy, all falling under the direction of an anthemic procession of fuzz-blown guitars.
A thirteen-minute track like “The Examination” requires an investment of time, but evolves through so many facets that it never quite disengages the ear. Although “See You in a Minute” adopts a dark urgency over its hurried percussion and fleeting guitar licks, most of the songs retain a lightness of mood, sounding often slow and reflective or playful and spontaneous. Classical guitar solos make appearances in “I Will Disappear You” and “I’m Getting Alone.” Tribal motifs pop up in the album’s latter half, culminating with the truly unique “African Violet Casts A Spell,” where twangy strums, hand claps, and ritualistic hymns sound over the churning of water in a bowl.
Most the album is highly suggestive (Tecuciztecatl is a Nahuatl term for “man-in-the-moon”), striving for visual, dramatic accompaniment; yet after fourteen albums there is nothing unexpected to be found in the musical style here; it’s simply a fond re-stirring of the old psychedelic stew.
