Review: Guillermo Sexo | Secret Wild

Guillermo Sexo's recently issued fourth full-length is doubly remarkable: not only is the Boston-based dream-pop quartet's collection Secret Wild very good, but also it strongly underscores that the band is very good at doing more than one thing -- no mean feat in today's atmosphere of the Internet subjecting acts to harder scrutiny ever earlier in their careers, before they even figure out how to do one thing right. Of course, Guillermo Sexo has been writing and recording records for more than five years at this point, and don't qualify as "new" by any metric. But all the same, the band's facility with different styles -- as particularly evidenced by Secret Wild -- is impressive.

As we stated here earlier this month, the new record charts the "middle ground between heavy atmospheric shoegaze...and Led Zeppelin-styled English folk." The same sonic range also characterized 2010's terrific and relatively slept-on (at least, admittedly, by us) full length Vivid Nights, which we discussed briefly here a year ago. But the songs on Secret Wild resonate even more strongly, perhaps because of a heightened air of psychedelia shot through the music, or perhaps because of the rich production. It's no matter -- either way Secret Wild is one of the strongest releases to date in 2011.

Highlights abound. When co-fronter Noell Dorsey pushes her voice into overdrive for the concise, spine-tingling rocker "Green Eyes," it takes on a tonal similarity to that of Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. Guillermo Sexo's "Exhale" opens with melancholy strumming, and something about the production and tension consistently tricks us into thinking an explosive chord will arrive at any moment, as in The Boo Radley's epic jaw-dropper "Foster's Van." Instead, tasteful and spare guitar leads coax the composition along like a lure on a line, all while the atmospheric swirl just below the song's surface continues its seamless, endless respiration. The title track ("Secret Wild") offers a starry strummer that -- as noted supra -- reminds us of the sort of mystical English folk we assume (but about which we have to confess ignorance) must exist outside of the context of Led Zep's (and, to a lesser extent, Fields') compelling acoustic compositions. The song conveys an ideal pastoral carelessness that one only ever really gets to experience via nostalgia, which is to say you don't know it is happening until after it has happened.

Guillermo Sexo self-released Secret Wild July 16 in a limited edition of 300 white LPs, 100 t-shirts with download codes and also digitally. Five of the album's nine tracks can be streamed at Bandcamp, and we've embedded a player containing same below. But wait, there's more! The digital version of Secret Wild comes packaged with three otherwise unreleased demos; these are not included on the vinyl, although those who purchase the LP receive download codes for the digital version of the album which includes the three demos. Guillermo Sexo is planning a tour to support the record that will launch in September.



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