The Singles Jukebox

Usually, when Spanish bands have interesting names, they end up sounding like Wet Wet Wet. Not this lot…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.70]

Alex Macpherson: So they have bog-standard indie in Spain too, huh. What on earth is meant to be this song’s selling point? Even when concentrating on concentrating I drift away within the minute.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: I’m not even sure what my buttons are anymore, but holy fuck does this push them.
[8]

Andrew Casillas: THIS SONG IS SO LOUD AND AWESOME I CAN’T TURN OFF MY CAPS LOCK
[8]

Iain Mew: Maybe it’s just because I’ve been listening to Javiera Mena a lot since we covered her and this is the only other Spanish language thing I’ve heard since, but the charmingly indie vocals and playful mood of this really reminds me of her. Only put through a filter of layers and layers of bludgeoning noise, which acts to highlight the prettiness of the song underneath almost as well as actually bringing it to the fore would.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: Well, I like her voice, and there is some fine almost Wedding Presenty strumming on this, but overall it sounds like the kind of indie that made me lose interest in the genre a couple of decades back, and a couple of likeable elements don’t really change that.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Corn syrup over a statue of Horus, naked chicks with skulls covering genitalia, random shots of goats, and a blasphemous host — sort of like the Eluard maxim about nuns and becoming a priest, but incredibly fond of the grindy/noisy guitars, the stupid easy percussion, and the sweet love of kitsch.
[9]

Chuck Eddy: Moderately loud, moderately pretty zillionth-generation post-JAMC indie-nerd barrage with a vaguely sweet-sounding frontgirl and no audible rhythm section. Sung in a language that perhaps makes it interesting in theory, but it’s less so in reality — a shame, since the opening notes sounding like “Ca Plane Pour Moi” got my hopes up.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: At long last, the Jukebox gets its hands on a good old-fashioned Velvet Underground rip. This one is from Spain, and like most good, straight-ahead sons and daughters of “What Goes On,” it gains power with repetition. Well, OK, it’s not just that: the band slows down and speeds up more easily and readily than the Velvets ever did when the song calls for it. But they piledrive really well anyway.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Culturally myopic of me as it may be, I tend to get annoyed when I have not even a chance of understanding lyrics, but the words here seem to be less the point than the layers of happy noise, anyway. Also, the singer seems to be, at enough points throughout, singing things that I imagine would be gibberish to me even if the song were in English, so I just shut up and get as lost in this blissful, propulsive blur as I would if this were something by MBV or Ride or anyone like that.
[8]

Mallory O’Donnell: Given my proclivities, it’s only natural that I like this — vocals en español, post-punk-ish female singer, uhh… named after a freaking New Order song. But while the melodic line is very New Order, the production is brittle and lo-fi, more like shoegaze or old school punk than anything on Factory. It’s a combination that works — and is going to sound totally sweet at that hottest basement dance party ever you never realized you were gonna be throwing until right before you heard this.
[7]