Mares (Tyrannus Records)

 Bauda and Leuku are both side projects of Mr. César Márquez (Animus Mortis bass player), but unlike the well known infernal sound of his main band, “Mares” shows the more Ambient/Folk laden side of Cesar’s creativity, completely influenced by the beautiful southern Chilean landscapes. This split Cd contains the first Bauda release called “Del Mar Al Aire” plus a couple of unreleased tracks alternated with four tracks from Leuku (unavailable anywhere else). Bauda, a duo formed by Cesar, who handles the whole instrumentation, and Silvia Márquez on vocals, creates beautiful musical landscapes, basing its sound in acoustic guitar lines and keyboard driven tranquil atmospheres, adorned by all kind of instruments that ranges from accordion to didgeridoo resulting in an interesting and pleasant musical experience, reminding me the sound of Orplid or even Tenhi… The music of Bauda is definitely not simple, it’s, in fact, pretty complex in its composition, but it’s so well arranged that flows completely naturally giving a sense of serene simplicity… like a tranquil flowing river… The four tracks from the quintet Leuku shows a different direction, more inclined towards the Metal sound, which is reflected in the more intense and structured percussion, the inclusion of rather severe vocalisations (that ranges from spoken to some grim Black Metal styled ones) and the straight metallic electric guitar work, but always maintaining the nature-inspired folkish background. As I mentioned before, this split Cd is not divided in halfs, the tracks here are alternated in a pretty arbitrary way, which sounds, at least to me, disordered, considering the obvious musical differences between each band… but that’s just a detail. “Mares”, as a whole, is a beautiful, intense and intrincated work, the kind of Cd you can listen to ten times in a row without getting bored… (AP)