Though they would eventually evolve into one of the world's most distinctive stoner rock/doom metal bands, on their 1998 debut,
Delmar,
los Natas come across as little more than second-rate
Kyuss clones. Songs like "Samurai" and "I Love You" are so utterly dependent on the desert metal godfathers for their essential sonic blueprint that it becomes almost impossible to praise them on their own merits -- of which there are quite a few. Mellow, spacy instrumentals like "Trilogia" and "Mux Cortoi" round out the disc's amazingly precise
Sky Valley impression, and, tellingly, except for the Spanish-speaking title track and "Negro,"
Delmar is the only
Natas LP sung almost entirely in English -- yet another sign that these guys hadn't yet figured out how to think for themselves. When they finally did, starting with 1998's much, much improved
Ciudad de Brahman, boy, did they show us! In the meantime,
Delmar is best left forgotten except by stoner rock masochists and devout latter-day fans curious to find out where it all began. [2003's
Bee Jesus box set conveniently repackaged the disappointing
Delmar with its worthy successor,
Ciudad de Brahman, and added two unreleased tracks.]