CORTEZ: SELL THE FUTURE
translated from Flemish:
Cortez, an American quintet from the Boston area, is on their third full album with “Sell the Future”. After the EP “Thunder In A Forgotten Town” (2007) it was a five year wait for the full-album debut. That finally came in 2012 with the self-titled album. Another five years later, in 2017, the sequel was ready: “The Depths Below”. This time the fans don’t have to wait five years for a sequel, because here is the quintet with “Sell The Future”. We really can’t describe the sound of Cortez better than they do in the promo insert: “… With the precision of heavy metal, the soul of classic rock, and the unbridled attitude of a band who care less about your expectations than they do about writing kick-ass, drive-fast, dynamic, hugely-grooved, hugely melodic and expansive tunes,… ”. We then use the terms heavy metal and classic rock from that. But whatever box you want to push the band into, we are already impressed by this third full-album. “No Escape” kicks off “Sell The Future” in style. The energy and drive of this track almost make our speakers melt, while the sound is powerful thanks to the high tempo, the extremely clock-steady base of the bass and drums, the mighty riffs, the very powerful yet quite smooth vocals and the beautiful guitar violence with which the band takes a break. We already feel that we are leaving for a fantastic musical trip. The title track follows and here the gentlemen – Matt Harrington (vocals), Scott O’Dowd (guitar), Alasdair Swan (guitar), Jay Furlo (bass, backing vocals) and Alexei Rodriguez (drums) – clearly slow down. But what they lose in momentum is made up for immensely by adding extra power and a lot of threat. After all, the lingering of doom is invariably lurking around the corner. This threatening force is also discussed during the once again more energetic and driven ‘Look At You’. How the gentlemen pound it nicely during ‘Faulty Authors’, a song in which they play with more powerful and softer sounding fragments, with more uptempo parts and with slightly slower passages, with groovy elements and with very nice guitar work. “Deceivers” opens somewhat hesitantly, but soon the gentlemen find each other and push the song forward powerfully and firmly. “Sharpen The Spear” is the next piece of powerful, yet melodic-sounding violence that we witness. We continue to notice that Matt’s vocals are more in tune with what we are used to with powerful classic rock bands, while purely musically with Cortez it may tend to tend towards traditional heavy metal. But you will definitely not hear us complain, because the next pounding and powerful piece of musical violence can already be heard through the speakers. “Vanishing Point” has once again become a very driven and energetic sounding track with flashy guitar work in the break, while the tempo is nicely maintained by the bass and drums. The gentlemen close down a lot more quietly with ringing guitar playing and beautiful vocals that get an extra dose of power just in time when the drums are allowed to play. Again the powerful, slightly raw sounding vocals stand out in a positive way, while we are also very charmed by this structure of this song that gets an injection of tempo a little over halfway through. Now don’t ask us to choose which track we would like to favorite on this album, because we don’t really have one. We certainly did not discover a slightly lesser track. “Sell The Future” by Cortez is really successful all along the line, so that fans of the (sub) genre do not have to doubt: they can go straight to the record store to buy this album. It will be a more than worthy addition to the collection.
Luc Ghyselen (95)
Ripple Music
