We know that no matter how tempting it may be, we should not fall into the false emotional whirlwinds of a holiday as faked, artificial and capitalist as Valentine’s Day, but regardless of the context calendar in which we move, it is impossible not to be carried away by the sweet aroma emanating from the new work of puzzles and dragonswith which even those bearers of the coldest and most icy hearts of the place will notice a particular thaw within themselves when they come into contact with those cozy melodies that this unique quartet from Madrid has sent us out of nowhere.
To truly fall in love, it seems that we must flee from today, as the nostalgic and taciturn parameters that we find in “Memories of Puzzles and Dragons” (The Wrong Genius, 23). More than five years after their debut, Carlos, Dani, Mark and Miguel renew their particular repertoire with a new sample of that referential background that will conquer the most out-of-date minds and the most touched hearts, because from the brilliant “Ruben and Andrea” we will be clear that this record is one of those that hurts (but scabies with taste, it doesn’t itch). A string of eleven songs twinned by that sound that is halfway between The Pastels and La Buena Vida (a little from here, a little from there), certifying that there are references that never expire or better resources than those of a lifetime to express a feeling The quartet does not mask their memories with metaphors or their pain with smiles; they embrace regret and sorrow, and try to heal themselves well using a narrative that reflects on the different stages of a breakup (“The Void That Cannot Be Filled”) and of that internal burning that loss infringes and that burns us to the point of believing that everything is over (“I let you go, how to explain / my happiness will go with you”, they sing in “The End of my Happiness”).
Hand in hand with his “fanzinesque” aesthetic cut, traveling in time through the musicalized pages of this “Memories of Puzzles and Dragons” It will not be difficult for us at all, whether it is to walk between flashes of slowcore and dark shoegaeze (“Abysses and Shadows”), luminous pop and naive jangle (“The Distance Is Near”) or raw Gordon Gano warmth (“The warning”). It is precisely those ingredients, totally isolated from fashions and that scratch the imagination of that generation that lived through the 90s with a conscience of cause, where the autobiographical cut of the album becomes shared and collective. In addition to that false trust that is generated between its creators and the listener (because there is nothing that unites more than a broken heart), there are also shots that connect the LP with a present that reveals some snow on the roof, like those references to the most boomer cybernetic reconnection (“Facebook”) or concern about aging (“soon it will be you and me too, old people”they sing in “Old people”).
Closing a trilogy that began in 2013 with the EP “We are Puzzles and Dragons”and which followed in 2017 with “Puzzles and Dragons are back”, the quartet now signs what is perhaps their best work to date, most likely achieving the task they started with a decade ago: creating the perfect pop song.