Comunión shows considerable growth and makes for a far more enjoyable listen than its predecessor, but Beirah is still stacking too many sections into a single song.
As far as local post-rock bands go, Beirah have always been the the most ambitious from the bunch. Granted, the bar is not set that high, but the band was actually onto something, aiming to infuse their post-rock drama with the cerebral nature of progressive rock. They also showed a heavier side, and their song tended to go beyond the loud-quiet-loud dynamics that trust fund-crust and post-metal bands tend to favor. Instead, they opted to connect their multi-part songs through intricate transitions, each more complex than the last, resulting in a convoluted bulk of sections that were as interesting as they were long-winded and tiresome at times. Like a movie with too many subplots, Beirah failed to stick with one idea, going from part A to part B and all the way through the alphabet just make sure they were letting us know that their rock had as much prog as it had post in it.
This is still the case with their new release, Comunión, but it does show a considerable amount of growth making for a far more enjoyable album than its predecessor, which lacked punch, emotion, and it just did not express anything other than the genres the members liked, and the fact that they have a good retention span. In both cases, if you are not simultaneously looking at the tracklist while playing the album, it may be surprising to find out that, no, you did not just sit through 30 songs in less than an hour.
Listening to Beirah is pretty much like trying to pet a feral cat: once the sweet spot is found, it's all purrs, licks and cuddles, but prior to that, you may suffer from a few scratches and bites. The group ends up throwing so much stuff into a single track, that the listener is bound to find at least one bar that will make their heads turn, and to be fair, Comunión does have quite some hard-hitting, awesome parts. The problem is that in some cases, getting to them doesn’t feel as rewarding as it should because of everything that comes in between. It’s not because what’s being played is bad, but it’s hard to get into a passage when it only lasts a few seconds and then you never hear from it again.
The noisy ambiance at the beginning of “Himnos Arcanos” quickly gives way to a section that kind of sounds like “Take the Veil, Cerpin Taxt”, which, then again, transitions into a throbbing Pelican-esque riff. From there, we need to wait a few minutes of drum fills, busy bass lines and spiraling guitars before reaching the much needed -and quite obligatory- quiet interlude. The way it slowly and beautifully evolves, shows that if the band can commit to a single idea and really focus on making it grow, they’d be able to come up with epic pieces. This is a crescendo that sounds organic and when the chords come in, they do it with so much power that, even though this is not the heaviest nor most technical part on the album, their presence is more imposing than any of the other, more elaborate, parts.
“El Equilibrio del Caos” is another highlight because of its restraint. It’s even easy to overlook that brief King Crimson rip-off that appears halfway through the song, because everything that preceded it and follows afterwards actually feels connected; it can easily be dismissed as a nod to their prog roots.
The influences -at least when it comes to genres- are still crystal clear, and we may need to wait a few more albums until Beirah can come across a more distinctive sound. In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with those crushing guitars, and fat bass lines, because if there’s one thing that makes the band stand out, is that it knows how to deliver heavy parts without making them sound trapped within metal cliches. Comunión is also seeing them learn to be more nuanced and atmospheric, and the result is actually pretty good. “El mar no rechaza ningún río” has a shimmer that glows with depth and the instruments’ clarity has a rich and textured presence.
Thankfully, the band doesn't take their progbatics to the extreme, so the compositions have a linear flow; the lack of angularity on their structures helps absorb their ever changing pace more easily, and this is much appreciated, specially on the longest tracks which is when Beirah tries to work with too many elements.
Ambition is a good thing as it forces artists to push their work forward, and if they fail, the public can at least agree that they tried delivering something different. Fortunately, we cannot say that Beirah failed, but they’re still finding a proper way to deliver all the ideas that populate their collective unconscious.