ALBUM REVIEW: Hex – Toundra

When somebody casts a hex on you, it can be both a blessing and a curse. A hex can be a bewitching experience, a magical waltz through a world of new possibilities; it can also be an unpleasant encounter, a dangerous dance with death and all its friends. In many ways, Spanish instrumentalists TOUNDRA have aptly named their eighth album. HEX, in the grand scheme of things, is both a blessing and a curse. 

TOUNDRA took inspiration from the uncomfortable conditions travelling during a pandemic presented and the unconventional circumstances their own confinement placed on their creative process. Subsequently, HEX is a product of reflection brought on by the pandemic. 

22-minute opener and three-part album centrepiece El Odio (Parte I – III) is a soundtrack to guitarist Esteban Girón’s self-realisations. Each part ebbs and flows like the singular track it is, allowing the listener a level of crystal-clear transparency; you know that each part is set out in acts, telling a story of Girón’s past understanding of hatred, his current perception based on recent experiences, and his commitment to his future self. 

By and large, El Odio is what we’ve come to expect from TOUNDRA. Together, its three parts form a towering monolith that looms over the album’s remaining tracks like Sauron over Mordor. Parte I delivers glimmering guitars and equation-solving drum patterns against interstellar synths that simmer in the background, whilst Parte 2 breaks out into bleaker territories, throwing out riffs you’d expect ambient black metal bands to pull on you. 

Listening to Ruinas is like watching a wizard cook up potions in a cauldron; it bubbles away until reaching boiling point. With a formula they follow throughout HEX, and much of their catalogue, the band bleed colourful planetary post-rock into black holes of progressive metal. La Larga Marcha attempts to experiment with electronic influences, yet the mix only reaffirms their mastery of their core instruments over any synthetic alchemy.

Out of the second half’s set, Watt is arguably the one you want to focus on. Splinching western scales, worldly structures, and a saxophone, TOUNDRA suddenly shoot HEX off into the cosmos. Experiencing Watt is when you realise why HEX is both a blessing and a curse.

Other than Watt’s permeations, HEX is nothing you’ve not heard from the quartet before. In many ways, it’s like playing through a remaster of a classic video-game; it’s everything you’ve come to expect, but it looks better than ever. Whilst TOUNDRA sound tighter and more in touch with each other than ever, you’d have expected 2020’s palette-cleansing alternative soundtrack experiment Das Cabinet Des Dr. Caligari to have freed them from any creative shackles they may have had.

If you’ve never delved into TOUNDRA‘s deep catacomb of a back catalogue, HEX is a brilliant place to begin. It is the sound of the Spaniards ascending to the very peak of their powers; yet struggles to differentiate itself from its preceding projects to truly exist above the noise.

Rating: 8/10

HEX is set for release on January 10th via InsideOut Music.

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