Progressive Rock
Self-released · 6 June 2025
“TerryG” opens with eight minutes and ten seconds that cover the whole album in a single piece: an atmospheric keyboard entrance, electric guitar arriving heavy at mid-distance, a central section of almost unaccompanied acoustic guitar, and a final climb built in layers rather than in volume. It is the track that explains why the band bills itself as “mediterranean space rock” on its own website.
Alcantara are from Sicily and this is their second studio album, six years after “Solitaire” (2019). “Tamam Shud” is a Persian phrase meaning that something has ended, and the record came out on vinyl first and only afterwards on the platforms; in 2026 they released a live album, “In Concert”.
The language shifts inside the same song. “Il Distacco” (8:52) is mostly in Italian with scattered English lines, and its centrepiece is a long guitar solo with the band set well back. The title track is the quietest thing here: seven minutes of almost nothing but keyboards, with the guitar never taking command. “Wodwo/Vertigo” closes with the violin out front and is the most openly psychedelic piece.
What is hard to locate is where other people’s vocabulary ends and theirs begins. “Distant Star” (5:31) and “Sail” (6:25) are the two pieces that go down without asking anything of the listener, and also the two that anyone who knows Pink Floyd, Riverside or Gazpacho could place with their eyes shut. The band itself cites Pink Floyd and Radiohead in its own presentation, and the record never contradicts the reference.
Self-released on 6 June 2025. Six tracks, 43:25.
Rating: 7.0/10
Text by Guillem Cardós