The Defense is going to forego the Prosecution and start by presenting their best evidence
against the Defendant:
This album has a drum machine.
So, obviously an album like that will never reach its full potential, but there you are. Often it's right up in your face and diverts your attention a bit too much from the music, sometimes it blends in fairly well and after a few spins it's merely a single notch off the total rating of the album - like with the silly band name (translates as 'chewing gun' for doG's sake), ugly coverart and whatnot. With this major flaw out in the open and dealt with, let's talk CHYKLE:
This is the embryo of what later became cult act
EL DRAGON, though if that's about all you might have snapped up by and about the band, blame it all on the
Metaleros webpage.
For some unfathomable reason these guys were excluded from the Argentinian section of the page and merely referred to as "unexiting Hard Rock" in the EL DRAGON article (one of the precious few flaws in ths otherwise amazing and very comprehensive site). Well, sure you could rate plenty of it as Hard Rock and a few ugly bits like the beginnings of "Fuego En La Hoguera" and "Fugitivo Del Ataud" is pure boogie but as a whole this album is a lot heavier and more metallic than most offerings from compatriots like RIFF or
RATA BLANCA. Most songs belong in the same fast, proto-Speed vein as
VULCAIN,
ACID, Belgian KILLER etc and the only thing that set them apart from the EL DRAGON debut is the absence of keyboards and a stronger bias towards nwobhm'y riffing rather than vocal melodies. I gotta give some credits to those awesome vocals - Carlos' voice has the
perfect, raw & raspy voice for this brand of Steel and it works especially well on the catchier tunes like "Peligro De Guerro", "Vibora Venenosa" and the title track.
Unfortunately all 3 CHYKLE albums seem to be rare as hens' cocks, with this debut possibly being the hardest one to pin down. Out of
the few pictures I've seen of the sleeve, only one came without the 'Promocion' banner in the upper left corner so maybe it was mostly distributed as a promo? In any case I'm hoping to deal with all three releases here eventually, praying the Vinyl Gods will grant my wishes. We're pretty tight, me and the VGs, so hopefully it won't take too many years...