Mid-tempo punk out of Seville, Spain that tensely keeps the right amount of lyrical and musical attitude through the eight quick tracks. This could have been something the JAM recorded in the short time between their first two albums, if only Paul Weller sang in Spanish.
Debut LP from Bilbao, Spain’s ORSINI, a four-piece doing heartfelt post-punk with a mix of ’90s Fat Wreck Chords sounds on the vocals—reminds me a bit of SWINGIN’ UTTERS with the backing chants. More contemporarily, it reminds me of Athens’s CHAIN CULT, who I reviewed a while back. The lead guitar phrasing is really nice, soothing almost, and consistent with the genre, it acts as the throughline for each track. While I don’t know exactly what they’re singing about, the album description shares that they were “looking back at that huge black hole we ended up in, and how, in the end, making it through actually made us stronger.” Even to ears unfamiliar with Basque, the deeply personal storytelling is evident in the feel and tenor of the songs, balancing a sense of longing with hope, or at the very least, acceptance. Not sure if that’s what they were going for, but it’s how I’m left after repeated listens to Ezin Atera. This feels like a good end-of-summer record, so tune in now.
