Medussa - Mueran Las Ideas

Medussa is an instrumental band from Santander, Spain.  Their latest release, “Mueran Las Ideas,” is their fourth full-length album.  

Medusa and “Mueran Las Ideas,’ have a sound that is hard to pin down—this could fit under the categories of rock and post to metal and prog, perhaps even doom and atmospheric. Their brand of music is very fluid, and it isn’t easy to tell what will happen next.  With that being said, none of the songs are disjointed or jarring.  The band plays with incredible synergy and offers a very natural and smooth sound, no matter where it leads to.  I’m going to speak about a few of my favorite songs on the album, but every song is a journey unto itself. 

The album opens with “Palabras,” and I think that is a good choice for the introduction—and a great song for new fans (such as myself) of the band to start with. It begins clean and dreamy, like a post-morning daze after waking up.  As the fog begins to clear, a deep clarity in the form of the bass guitar, forms as the song grows from there.  There is a lot of rising action in this one and by the end it feels like a towering summit has been met, a crescendo worthy of being reconquered—and tried all over again.   The drums are very complimentary of the music—-the guys play so well together with a lot of purpose and also sense of adventure.  The riffs that end the song are hard enough to satisfy even the most jaded metalhead. 

“Certeza,” begins with drums and bass that play outside the box.  As they whimsically build their world, clean guitars accept the invitation and all the elements swirl together in a dance that is quite moving.   The skies grow a little darker when the distortion turns up, plunging the band (and the listener) into a new biome of musical exploration.  The instrumentation that follows is curious, unafraid to walk off the beaten path.  This fearlessness leads to a post extravaganza where the instruments create a seamless world of sound that creates visions. 

The last song, “Verdad,” is very unique.  The thumping bass and drums got my own heart pumping alongside the urgency.  But the guitars are clean and patient, taking their time to build let their layers fall upon the foundation as it builds every higher.  This is a bright track yet I can feel the underlying melancholy just below the surface, the song's own little side quest slowly joining with the other players.  The middle portion of the song is playful and proggy, a sort of chaos that isn’t dark but rather mysterious and unexplainable yet not something that can be ignored.  The last three minutes of the song is the endgame of the results offered by this passage—the song burns bright and true into the end, a quiet roar of an imaginative dirge that tugs on the heartstrings in a way that I find hard to explain but enjoyed nonetheless. 

“Mueran Las Ideas,” is an album that is outside my wheelhouse, in terms of my personal listening and also what I usually cover in this blog.  But good music is good music, and it would be a crying shame to let such a beautiful album go unnoticed.  I don’t care what kind of music you like or how hardcore of a metalhead you are….this album needs to be heard. 

Rating: Great