The band LAS HISTORIAS is back with their new release, “House Of Pain”. The sound and production of this album is rough, and then I realized “House Of Pain” is a release of demos of songs from their second studio album. The music, though, is not much better than the production. At many times, it seems to wander aimlessly. It is also definitely not metal, not that that is a bad thing. I listen to and enjoy other styles of music. Musically, “House Of Pain” is more psychedelic rock, like The Doors meets early Pink Floyd meets Led Zeppelin.

 The first track, “High Times”, starts with a good rhythm riff. From there it gets a little Zeppelinish when a second guitar comes in doing a trippy riff with the wah. There are very few vocals and they are buried in the mix. Then the song continues without an actual solo, but an extended instrumental break that is nothing more than the beginning rhythm and trippy lead riff. This song started promising, but went nowhere. “Mountain” is the next track. It starts with an over distorted guitar that truly sounds as if the amp speaker was blown. While that is how guitarists used to create a distorted sound or the fuzz tone, nowadays that is not a good sound, and there are better ways of creating that sound. There is a second version of the song later on the album that has a much better tone to the guitar. The song itself has a very Zeppelin like groove and is only a three minute instrumental.

“Hell Bird” starts with a nice little riff that sounds like something discovered while noodling on the guitar. It is a cool little intro, before the main song begins. This song could be good, if it didn’t sound so bad production wise. Even as a demo, this sounds really rough. Like before, there is a second version later on the album. The second version, dubbed (take 1), sounds better sonically, but does not have any words. The first version does have vocals. “Down The Road” continues with more of the same underproduced sound, and yes I know these are demos. Despite the poor quality of sound, this may be the best off the album. The guitars, while they could use a better tone, have a good groove. The guitars switch between over distorted to a semi-clean tone and back. They sound much better when they do switch to the cleaner tone. Once again, there are a few vocals, but they are buried and unintelligible. While trying to keep in perspective that these songs are demos, they are still rough and poor quality in sound. Many of the tracks sound as if they are just a practice jam session and are underdeveloped. This is something only die hard fans of the band would want as fans are into early demos as collectable stuff.