El General Villamil come from Guayaquil in Ecuador, and they are an interesting new South American psychedelic rock band that mixes surf rock, 60s psychedelia and somewhat lo-fi sounding and noisy garage rock. Their latest and what happens to also be their debut album is titled Archipelago 32' and it was released in 2014. Usually it is either Chile, Peru or Argentina that produce interesting psychedelic rock bands such as most notably Föllakzoid, The Holydrug Couple or La Ira De Dios, but now El General Villamil has put Ecuador on the South American psych map as well.
El General Villamil are not however like every other psych rock band with 60s influences, that are emerging like mushrooms after a good rain all over the world these days. El General Villamil has a distinct trouble free sub-tropical South American vibe to them, kind of like the Chilean outfit The Holydrug Couple as well. One just has to listen to the first track of the new album, which is titled Sasha, to understand just how catchy, addictive, mellow and genuinely awesome this Ecuadorian band can be. Flowing drums and basslines followed by catchy psych rock guitars with a surf attitude, accompanied by mellow psych rock or neo-psych style vocals, that are pursued in turn by some fuzzier guitars in the second half of the song. It just feels so god damn genuine. The same can be said of the last track of the album which is titled Migong, which however is a bit heavier in a mellow psych rock sense in parts and packs another catchy fuzzy riff. Another track titled P. Seca sounds like some seriously funky psych with a great surf attitude once more. Actually the whole album has this distinct vibe to it.
Altogether Archipelago 32' has been a thoroughly fascinating and very promising debut album from this so far relatively obscure Ecuadorian psych rock band, and I for one surely look forward to what they have in store for us next. This band very well could be the next Holydrug Couple.
Some related links:
Bandcamp: http://elgeneralvillamil.bandcamp.com/releases
