Monday, August 1st, 2016

Alex Anwandter – Intentarlo Todo de Nuevo

Alex, we’re ready to be heartbroken…


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[7.17]

Iain Mew: An amiable shuffle that feels like an early-in-the-evening attempt to get people swaying, its moderate success elevated once it’s clear it’s set against a message of facing the end.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: “Intentarlo Todo de Nuevo” is glamorous with swelling strings and a sweet horn section. But like the many songs in Amiga, this is a teardrop rolling down a face of beautiful make-up. Anwandter cries the end of the world over a deep heartbreak, with a devastation in his voice to match his claim. He doesn’t lean on the regal music for bloated melodrama, though, instead letting it play out like a toast to a past love. He wrestled with conflict and personal issue by way of rich music in “Siempre Es Viernes En Mi Corazon”; this song is no different. And like his past single from Amiga, I think he’ll once again overcome.
[8]

Cassy Gress: My own “esto es el final” moment did not involve reaching out to my parents, mentally or otherwise; it was all about convincing myself to make the leap. That, combined with the America-the-band sound and Alex’s slightly out-of-tune wailing vocals (more noticeable thanks to the double-tracking), pushes the whole thing over into soppy melodrama for me. But at the same time, just because my emotional collapse was more self-contained, why should his or anyone else’s be? I kept waiting for the part where the soft rock would transition into something else, but it never really did.
[4]

Alfred Soto: An enthusiastic strummer, a surprise after the electro pop wonder called “Siempre es Viernes En Mi Corazon.” More enthusiastic than skilled, for Anwandter’s vocal limits get a strong test. But from the piano runs and string squalls to the female call-and-response harmony, the arrangement shows imagination.
[7]

Peter Ryan: Amiga is a treasure-trove of gorgeously-rendered stylistically-diverse pop, but this, which kicks off the record’s more subdued but no less urgent second side, is easily one of the record’s big sonic statement pieces, all gently-dueling horns and strings. Maybe even more remarkably, I can’t think of anything that more adroitly bridges “I just want you to be happy” and “I’d really like to go die now.” Whether he means any of it is up for debate (I’m betting he’s being sincere, which is maybe less interesting than if he isn’t), but it all sounds so lovely.
[8]

Juana Giaimo: I worry too much that non-Spanish language speakers may not get into Amiga. To start with, there is no word to translate the title, which is the feminine form of “friend.” If “Siempre es Viernes en Mi Corazón” was catchy and danceable, “Intentarlo Todo de Nuevo” may pass unnoticed for being too gentle if you don’t understand Spanish. But behind the words, I hear Alex Anwandter’s voice. It’s raw and he tries to control it — until the bridge when he just let it all out and the trumpets and violins join him in the violently emotional crescendo. Still, I can’t detach his voice from the lyrics. They are also raw thanks to straightforward lines like “Someone hug me because I want to say goodbye” or “I’d rather die than trying all over again.” The need for closure isn’t connected to the beginning of a new relationship, because who would want to suffer again this much? And why would I even try when I already know you have been “The most real love that arrived to my heart”? His words paint a frozen image of a farewell in which his former boyfriend is with someone else — it doesn’t matter who, except that it is not him — while he is completely alone with lots of questions and no answers. “I don’t feel pain, I only want to say goodbye,” he insists in the bridge, almost desperate. But who is that man in front of him? Amiga. And what can you say to an Amiga? “Tell me and promise me always, swear that you’ll stand by it, that you’ll be happy with your new love, or whoever, my love, but you will be alright.” It doesn’t matter what happened, because as long as this world is tough, there will always be honest and warm concern for the well-being of an Amiga.
[9]

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