Sangam & Kid Smpl Dwelling Descender (2019)

Avandra is the brainchild of Christian Ayala, a progressive rock/metal musician from San Juan, Puerto Rico. The band consists of Christian on guitars and vocals, Luis Javier Rivera on guitars, Gabriel Alejandro Rodriguez on bass, and Adrián Arroyo on drums. This album also includes guest appearances from Kevin Moore (ex-Dream Theater, Chroma Key, OSI), Richard Henshall (Haken), and percussion programming from Daniel Schwartz (Astronoid). The music on this record occupies that grey space between progressive rock and prog metal. You will hear plenty of riffing and technical drumming, but you’ll also hear plenty of alternative and progressive rock, a good amount of melody, delicate acoustic portions, and darker atmospherics bordering on melancholy at times. The vocals are low key and quite good, and they add to the shadowy tone of the album.

This album was unusual on several counts. For starters, it was a soundtrack (for Sam Peckinpah's movie of the same title), a first venture of its kind for Bob Dylan. For another, it was Dylan's first new LP in three years – he hadn't been heard from in any form other than the single "George Jackson," his appearance at the Bangladesh benefit concert in 1971, in all of that time. Finally, it came out at an odd moment of juxtaposition in pop culture history, appearing in July 1973 on the same date as the release of Paul McCartney's own first prominent venture into film music, on the Live and Let Die soundtrack (the Beatles bassist had previously scored The Family Way, a British project overlooked amid the frenzy of the Beatles' success).