Hatred, Love and Diagrams

Album review

El Caco frequently get a bum wrap, rudely dismissed by some as Norway's answer to Tool, and credited only with helping fans of the real deal cope with their notoriously looooong gestation periods between albums, but there's honestly something more to El Caco than that. Yes, the Lillestrøm-based trio clearly loves playing with Adam Jones' trademarked muted riffing and subsequent power chord gymnastics over convoluted tempos and elastic basslines (never more so than on the dead ringer "Autopsy"), but virtually every track found on El Caco's sixth album, Hatred, Love and Diagrams, boasts some kind of sonic departure that transcends mindless imitation. The softer parts of opener "After I'm Gone," for example, swing like a mother**ker -- certainly more than Tool ever have -- while the remarkably danceable "Hatred" bangs out a quasi-disco beat, and "Confessions" channels System of a Down's Serj Tankian through its vibrato-laden vocals. Then there are those entirely separate dimensions of El Caco steeped, on the one hand, in simpler stoner rock impulses (as evidenced by the unencumbered monster groove of "Go Forward") and on the other, in post-rock and metal influences like Isis, Mogwai, and Pelican (see "Equivalence," "Skeleton," etc.). All of these inspirations converge on the closing "Disconnect," and yes, the Tool ingredients are probably still most obvious of all, so take it as you will. For better or for worse, El Caco appear to have no intentions of going away at the rate that they keep releasing new albums, and if one can put aside the need to compare, Hatred, Love and Diagrams is ultimately a pretty entertaining LP.

© Eduardo Rivadavia /TiVo