To allege that in the field of music, or any other discipline, everything is invented, and therefore the attempt to attract the listener’s attention is futile, would be like acknowledging that our everyday language, given that any idea we express will have already been expressed previously, it does not contain any functionality. Ignoring, apart from the logical evolutions to which any communication tool is exposed, the exceptional nature of each particular form of expression, unique and unrepeatable due to a mere mathematical question, means substantially delimiting the creative impulse. Hence, ensuring that the list of elements that enter into combination in the proposal put forward by Edu Reawhether the use of country-rock or the electric beat of power pop, have already passed through too many hands is something as true as it is inaccurate, because what is especially suggestive and differentiating about their work is not hidden in the surprise that each of these ingredients may entail separately, despite the excellent mastery of them demonstrated, but in the fascinating management deployed to find a common thread between those links coming from different, if not almost antagonistic, natures.
A musical destiny that, however, is not at all the result solely of an individual determination, since, recognizing of course the outstanding work of his -renewed for this exercise- band, made up of Javier Indurain, Carlos Colina and Xabier Jareño, the presence of a producer as iconic at this point as Paco Locowith whom he repeats experience, also acts as a battering ram when directing the path of this “I Became What I Hated”. Beyond the technical tasks inherent to his role, and the consideration regarding his instrumental contribution, his task in finding the most identifying and differentiating path for the project, channeling and exponentiating the skills expressed by the author in each of the songs, is an exercise worth highlighting and pondering.
A union of factors that in this new chapter, the third in the individual trajectory of Edu Rea, join forces to represent a scenario focused from a more classic and organic point of view, a condition sealed by a nostalgic accent that permeates a good part of the repertoire, gifting it with an emotional unity that leads to the configuration of the best work to date signed by the Navarrese Because it is those small details, perfectly filed and that cover the bulk of the work that, assimilated among characteristics already fully established, certify a particularly successful work. Pieces that once again combine an autobiographical verb where it matters little whether the chosen context or the selected characters are fictional or real, since it is the essence that lives in them that manages to exemplarily express that sinuous and irregular space where the aspiration insists on hiding. romantic
Sequences of achievements and emotional disappointments, where the latter predominate more, which make up a skein that begins its journey with the melancholic and stealthy step of a “Paper & Ink” that already reveals to us the priority given to captivating harmonies that, treated with a exquisite electric thrust, they become aware of the legacy left by Wilco. Instrumental framework that, always avoiding self-absorption and overwhelming the listener, finds its epic expression, an ideal context in which to invoke the figure of Neil Young, in a sublime “Wine, Lies & Rum” or wields its most versatile and contemporary treatment , tools shared by War On Drugs, in a, despite everything relaxed, “Louise”. Deployment of details and suggestive decorations that will settle in the background to leave free passage to the piano and the vocal counterpoint generated between Edu Errea himself and Roberta Gangui to make “Crazy in Love” breathe through the silence like a romantic sigh.
That more classic tone that conquers the overall tone of the album finds its most explicit signature from the pedal steel that contributes its howl in the especially catchy musical drawing of “Keep Me in Mind”, an ability equally notable when it is achieved thanks to the harmonious interpretive tone, a la CSN&Y, from “True Love”, to the honky tonk stinged by Gram Parsons’ mournful accent that dictates the development of the country “Wasted Chances”, once again infused by the essential female contribution. Gestures of traditional ancestry that reach their culmination in a beautiful homonymous final piece that would be endorsed without any hesitation by the most in tune Jayhawks. Idioms that, however, do not overshadow the anecdotes, in terms of quantity but significant in terms of their quality, bursts of electricity that, whether under the impetuous distortion of “Robinson” or marked by a nostalgic but light trot “You Don’ t Know How To Flirt”, are also a prominent part of a path that, on the back of Teenage Fanclub or Tom Petty, can also be discovered with vigorous tread.
“I Became What I Hated” It is postulated as the best album to date Edu Rea precisely because in him he practices a perfect assimilation of what it means to sound classic, without complexes when it comes to showing the cards he plays with but adopting without any type of prejudice his own idiosyncrasy to interpret that universal heritage. Praises referring to the musical aspect that can exactly be extrapolated to texts that, dictated under the eternal – and as such inherent to the human being – tribulations generated by that elusive path that is destined to offer placidity to our hearts, are exposed with autobiographical self-confidence. . Songs that arose from the author’s absolute existential need and that, thanks to their exquisite content, become an outstanding intonation of our own concerns.