LAS HISTORIAS Vinilo y CD

Review: Straight out of the Argentine city of Cordoba, Las Historias are about as raw and vital as you're likely to find anywhere on the psychedelic rock scene today. Hit play on House of Pain, the group's second studio album, and it smacks you in the face with all the subtlety of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, guitars thundering out of the starting blocks before veering off into these distorted, harsh, and gritty six string solo masterclasses. It's a heavy, heaving, hulk of a record that's as scuzzy as it is trippy, the soundtrack to a hallucinatory night out where colours, sounds and senses are more memorable than the actual happenings. Like the swirling jump cuts in a deleted scene from Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, there's no coming back from this one.