Starting a review is like picking one of many doors into the world of an album. Sometimes, the door to choose is obvious. For a songwriter known for profound or incisive lyrics, you simply choose the door labeled "lyrics." For an artist known as a next-level guitar player, you take the door labeled "guitar." But what door do you take when there are many that all seem equally exciting? Take, for example, the new album Wasteland by Portugal's Travo. I initially saw this advertised as a heavy psychedelic rock album. There's a lot that fits under that umbrella, but I still have a basic expectation of what that sounds like. But diving into Wasteland, I hear many elements that don't fit neatly into that box. I always find music that colors outside the lines quite compelling - there's no neat comparison here, so there's no obvious place to start with the review. The only way to figure it out is to pick a door and try to find a way back out.  

Travo is a new band to me, but they've been around since 2018. I will admit that I haven't had time to check out their back catalog, but according to their press materials, Wasteland is a more grounded album than their previous output, which was recorded after three years of heavy touring around Europe. The album is inspired by the T.S. Eliot poem "The Waste Land," and pares back the fantastical themes of earlier works to focus on themes of "techno-anxiety, disconnection, dystopia, love, death, rebirth, and the search for collective spirituality."

Heavy stuff, delivered with heavy sounds. At its core, this is a heavy psychedelic rock album, but the soundscape across the album is quite expansive. Along with the fuzzy space rock, there are clear industrial influences, a barely controlled experimental noise chaos that recalls Brazilian's noise-masters Deafkids, and stoner rock grooves. The final track, "RAPTURE," has a driving, krautrock-inspired bass line that locks into a repetitive, building riff that's pure post-metal. There are a few moments of spacey, ambient rest. And, of course, there are crunching metal riffs and guitar pyrotechnics with layers of fuzzy distortion. 

Wasteland flows seamlessly from one track to the next, delivering an album that feels like a cohesive whole while the individual songs stand on their own. The interstellar instrumental track "SILENCED SOUL" is a dreamy interlude, but connects seamlessly with the propulsive "SLEEPER," which features the album's most blackened vocals - along with clean, falsetto singing. There is a lot of tension in this fashion across the duration of the album. It starts to deliver one thing, then switches it up and goes in an unexpected direction. It's a fascinating and unpredictable journey through the Wasteland, and I for one plan to keep coming back through its many doors.  

Travo's Wasteland is out October 2 via Fuzz Club.