Review: Free Ride ‘Acido Y Puto’
I had so many thoughts going through my head as I absorbed Acid Y Puto, the second album from Madrid, Spain desert-worshipping, riff-wielders, Free Ride. For starters, when seeing this in The Sleeping Shaman’s promo pool, I was taken aback at the band’s moniker. I was mildly amazed this name had not been gobbled up before, especially in the stoner rock genre.
As well, as someone who was born and raised in New Mexico, and having lived here for all but ten of my over-fifty years, hearing the word ‘puto’ in an album title had me laughing, as I’ve heard that word a lot in my life. I’ll let the reader do their homework on its meaning, and context, but suffice to say in Latino culture it’s generally meant as an insult, so seeing Acid Y Puto as a record title felt all at once amusing and also familiar.
Additionally, Free Ride, Borja Fresno Benitez on guitar and vocals, as well as production, and additional percussion, Victor Bedmar on bass and Carlos Bedmar on drums, fucking rock. And I’ll go ahead get this out of the way early, but Free Ride’s sound, while completely their own, is also an uncanny callback to late ‘90s/early ‘00s Nebula.
The album unfurls with the aptly named Space Nomad, which begins as an acoustic trip-out featuring some cool percussive action and effects swirls before kicking things up an notch with some killer, clean wah-pedal work, which sets up a massive explosion of fuzzed-up riffage and shred. Tonally, Benitez’s guitar is an audio time warp to Eddie Glass’ tone on Nebula’s legendary To The Center. Space Nomad is a stellar opener to a stoner/desert rock album as it features all one could want with this type of heavy rock; spacey acoustic playing, massive, fuzzy riffs that flow deftly from one to the other, all anchored by an absolutely walloping rhythm section.
The Nebula-time warp continues on Outsider which was also released as a video. Boasting an addictive, fuzz-drenched rock and roll main riff, it is here where Benitez’s vocals are clearly heard for the first time, and, ahem holy shit does he sound like Eddie Glass. His voice, delivery and cadence, to say nothing about his guitar playing and tone, are undoubtedly vintage Glass. There are some guest guttural vocals by, guessing from the video, a friend, manager, or roadie of the bands, that doesn’t necessarily serve the song, but also doesn’t diminish the track’s effectiveness.
Kosmic Swell is another perfectly titled track, as that’s literally what it sounds like. This nine-minute-plus instrumental begins with some subtle bass playing and cymbal taps as mellow guitar and effects move around. Free Ride take their sweet time, cruising through an aural cosmos building Kosmic Swell to a rocking apex that is loaded with shredding riffs along with rhythmic comings and goings before reaching its climax.
It is a killer stoner rock album of the highest order, filled with rich, warm tones, crackling fuzz, spaced-out, rock and roll lyrics and plenty of low-end thud…
Vice is another catchy as hell exercise in all things California stoner rock, but once again, I can’t help but be amazed at just how much Benitez is able to conjure up vintage Nebula sounds, especially when his vocals kick in, to say nothing of his riffage and lead work, it’s not hard to imagine this track as a long-lost Nebula single from the Charged sessions.
Nazaré is a bit of a curveball as it initially presents itself as an almost psychedelic surf-rock song, which, to my ears is both perfectly sequenced and a nice reprieve from the fuzz-beat down of the first half of the album. However, we don’t stay in this sonic space for long because the track eventually builds into another epic, winding, fuzz-drenched, stoner epic. Steamroller is also a perfectly named track as it sounds exactly like its namesake. It’s a pummeling, bulldozing riff monster, but possesses enough twists and turns to keep the listener wondering where the next riff-bomb will land.
Joy is an addictive, fuzzed-up rock and roll banger, as is the penultimate Blackout, a driving, riff-stuffed affair that features the immortal line ‘Sin City, fucked to the bone’. The album concludes with Living For Today, an upbeat, stoner rocker that sonically conjures up images of a lazy summer day, perhaps at the beach or driving on a desert highway with this song serving as the perfect soundtrack.
Acid Y Puto has received plenty of love from all corners of the internet and rightfully so. It is a killer stoner rock album of the highest order, filled with rich, warm tones, crackling fuzz, spaced-out, rock and roll lyrics and plenty of low-end thud. I will, however, beat this dead horse in saying that no matter how many times I spun it, I was continually amazed at how similar Benitez’s vocals and guitar playing are to vintage Eddie Glass.
This record is as sonically close to Nebula’s heyday as any album I’ve heard and I mean that sincerely. This comparison does not dismiss Acid Y Puto, or Free Ride in any way, as it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard this year. If anything, it leaves me in complete awe that they were able to capture this sound as well as they have. Highly recommended.
Label: Small Stone Records | Kozmik Artifactz
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Martin Williams
