Here's some melodic hardcore/punk from Spain with really cool and fairly unique female singing. It's not emo singing or any of that crap, it's just straightforward melodic singing that has the same sense of energy as the music. It's not poppy or pop punk influenced stuff, so don't get that impression... it's just outright melodic hardcore, emphasis on the melody. There's some really creative riffing with cool chord formations and note choices, and I think that works to help them standout quite a bit. What I don't like are the noisy passages. They often break into caustic guitar textures and that crap really disrupts their otherwise fluid and memorable performance, especially in songs like "Habitacion 101" that are otherwise awesome. But the thing is that they tend to throw a junky little noisy post-hardcore or improvisational sort of part into a lot of the songs, and that clutters up the flow so badly... I think I'd really get into this CD otherwise. Shit, faster tracks like "Chicos de la Calle (Toreros After Ole)" are fucking priceless! I wish the whole disc was along those lines. As far as the recording, they've got an even mix with natural drums and a really defined bass presence, and even though there's a little bit of a weird sheen to the guitar distortion, everything sounds pretty decent for what they're doing. There's a bunch of CD-Rom material as well, such as a band biography, lyrics, some photos, etc. There's also a video for "Plastika" with live footage and studio audio (it looks alright, it's not that great though). The interactive stuff must be sort of immense as far as file size because it was really choking in my computer trying to load up, and the menus and stuff weren't moving all that smoothly for some reason, I don't know. The layout's alright. I like everything but the front cover, because the cover just doesn't represent the band or the music very well. There are lots of little band photos along with the lyrics inside, and that all looks fine. Everything is in Spanish, so I can't get too much of a feel for what the content of the songs is, but I think some of the translated titles are "Attack and Defense", "Calculations, Numbers and Statistics", "Boys of the Street (Bullfighters After Ole)", and "Words", so it seems to me that the lyrics would be a mix of personal and probably some political leaning work. Damn, I really, really like some of this stuff a whole lot, but as a whole I just can't dig the more abrasive side of the writing. They really ought to can that side of their approach because it's totally irrelevant to what they're doing and takes the focus away from their strengths. There's great potential here, I just hope they nail it next time.
[Soulforce]
Running time - 37:38, Tracks: 16
[Notable tracks: Ataque y Defensa, Chicos de la Calle (Toreros After Ole), Palabras]
Soulforce Records - http://www.soulforce-records.com
