The Singles Jukebox

At this rate Chile may win the TSJ “Most Consistently Good Pop” award.

[Video][Website]
[6.33]

Alfred Soto: The ’80s having reached Chile later than the rest of the Western hemisphere, Namuel follows the lead of Alex Anwandter and Javiera Mena by using synths as big as his queer-ish emotions. While “Malta Ingenuidad” isn’t as strong as their best — his voice is even more wan than Anwandter, which is saying something — it’s strong finger-snapping dance-pop, most poignant when Namuel looks at the empty highway and hears no call.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: For what seems like a passive yet mutual split on a paper, the flashy beat of this synth-pop drama makes it sound like it’s anything but. As Namuel bends backwards for the person’s forgiveness in the chorus, he also sings with a clenched fist, stubborn to accept that they hit a wall and it’s him who cannot get them over it.
[6]

Iain Mew: It’s a mark of how excellent the base of Namuel’s frantic indie-disco-synth-pop is, that it just about survives a chorus which sounds like he is mid-realisation that picking OneRepublic at karaoke was a bad idea.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: This tune seems determined to use only stringy nineties low-budget trance presets as its sound design palette, up to and including the honest-to-god tinkly piano line under the main vocal hook. It mostly pulls it off as charming as opposed to irritating — the melodramatic lyricism helps in this regard — but everything else feels a little too by the numbers to leave a solid impression.
[6]

Jessica Doyle: The finger-snapping, the self-assertion in falsetto over synth booms and laser beams–everything’s been used before, and everything fits together with a clear attention to detail in craft. This is the disco equivalent of comfort food, but comfort food beautifully made, and I am eating it up.
[7]

Ramzi Awn: Namuel crushes it like a soda can, even if “Maldita Ingenuidad” is overproduced. The cracking vision is enough to hold its own. 
[6]