Viva Espana
Hola mis amigos and that’s enough Spanish for now but what I do have is the new Spanish Love Songs called ‘Brave Faces Everyone’ for your delectation. Well, my delectation first, then yours. This is the third outing from our friends, and it shares their take on the world and everything in it, the good – not much, the bad- quite a bit and the indifferent- well that describes those too fed up to comment or maybe even care. Life y’see is an endless struggle; we throw ourselves from one situation to the next, not stopping to breathe, and when it finally catches up, for some the camel’s back has already been broken.
It’s a ‘Routine Pain’ that we have become acclimatised to, we expect to be disappointed, we expect things to go wrong, we feel we will never be heard, but SLS are here to tell you all is not lost. When the only way is down folks, we have the trajectory set to ‘Self-Destruction’ and it’s a punchy, crunchy ride.
The single ‘Kick’ has the extraordinary opening line ‘when you saw your dad shoot up for the first time’ it’s bold yet troubling too but a stark reality for some. It is difficult to be optimistic when life deals you a miserable hand. What on earth are you supposed to do? I’ve reviewed several albums that carry this same theme, but for some reason this is the one that has made me really listen. I sense a little Brand New/ Taking Back Sunday in the sound, the voice and the guitars especially. ‘Losers’ is the mantra for the masses as ‘my bleak mind says it’s cheaper just to die’ unfortunately there is a lot of truth in that, we are so embroiled and trapped in our lives that death seems the only sensible option. It may sound cowardly, but it takes every atom of your being to keep pushing when you cannot see any progress or any respite from the aching and the strife. We return for ‘Losers 2’ and how ‘you always wake up tired’ – hands up all those who recognise this scenario? Yeah, I thought so. With the powerful message of ‘I gotta find a place of my own’ oh my friends I just have to hand it to SLS, they know.
With the title song finishing the record and the blinding lyric ‘I swear to God I’m an optimist, but I feel like burning down my life’ is symbolic of the tug of war between the glass half empty and the glass half full. We need to be grateful for the positives but sadly they are buried deep within the decrepitude. The lyric ‘we were never really broken’ gives the hope that maybe things aren’t that bad.
The drama of our lives is told in these ten songs, brave faces everyone and dive in!
Spanish Love Songs – Brave Faces Everyone out 7th February via Pure Noise Records