Based on a homonymous short story by Spanish novel writer Abel de Tena, El despertar de Queztgull (The Awakening of Queztgull) is the second studio album of young composer Samuel Barranco's sci-fi-based musical work Proyecto Éskhata (Éskhata Project).
This conceptual album tells the story of an organic planet, Queztgull, from its creation until its destruction. All songs' lyrics within this album narrate the evolution of the different species that inhabit the planet, how they adapt to the environmental conditions and how they deal with multitude of adversities. This way, the album is divided into 4 acts —representing the different cycles of the celestial body— and a final epilogue.
Musically talking, progressive metal and rap are the main elements although the album is riddled with hints of electronic, flamenco, ethnic music, etc. Nine singers from all over the world (Spain, United States, Malaysia, Switzerland, Belgium, Argentina and Senegal) take part in this project, each one representing a different character inside the story (a native race, a human, the planet Queztgull itself...)
All these features make this a work full of symbolism and parallelisms between said planet and the Earth that can only be understood by complementing the listening of the album with the reading of the short story.
