We have a new band in town and maybe you haven’t even heard about it. Called Monotonos and there is no reason to put the accent on the second o. Out of public service, I have decided to inform you of this. I will do it in only one language. Not like them, who suffer from chronic polyglossia.
For now, the data. I already told you, we talked about Monotonos and self-titled is their first album, a collection of ten songs that they recorded in the studio of David Sánchez Damián, bassist in Paniks, guitarist and vocalist in Dr Maha Miracle’s Tonic, and the head of Blue Bayou Recording Studio. Their work, from the outside, seems to be reflected in brilliant sound and effective production. The album does not have a seal. They have worked for it. They distribute it too. You can find it in some rock and roll joints and in a couple of record stores. Or contact them. They have just launched social networks and even a bandcamp. There are, by the way, four of them: Gari, on drums and lead vocals; Mikel, bass, backing vocals and attitude; Toni, on lead guitar, the most famous musician from Sabadell since Sergio Dalma and Albert Pla; and Jon Bustinza on backing vocals, rhythm guitar and bad jokes, the only one who still resides in Barakaldo, although they maintain the label of a factory group with pride and naturalness.
The album opens in a disconcerting way, and that, if I may use a scholarly verb, is cool. The industrial noises that open “Dance It More” then reveal a song with a persistent and hypnotic rhythm that opens with an interview in English between the singer and the backup singers (those who make the chorus, I mean), advocating for the wild and the animal. Then it is transformed into a recitation in Basque that encourages movement, dancing and sweat. It is a tempting beginning that they compensate with the captivating simplicity of “Stupid Love” as the second of the collection. More in line with the Belfast punk that some of them like, they once again evoke the visceral and, for the second consecutive song, demonstrate an allergy to traditional structures. The third time comes post and punk and rock (and all the scripts that unite them) a la Paniks, for example, with “Le Club”. It has nothing to do with music, but it reminds me of another magnificent song like “La Cueva” by Dogo y los Mercenarios, because this is also a tribute to a bar. In this case, they sing to El Tubo, whom we all miss, and that they are able to revive with the bass, delving into the mystery and with a successful introspective perspective, being able to evoke the atmosphere that was there. The vocal part, with that guttural vibrato on some vowels, reminds us of Black Toska’s way of telling stories. They do not stop at nostalgia, they are able to later write lyrics that evoke the theories of Heraclitus. “Panta Rhei” contains a rougher guitar. The guitar solo is like an uncontrolled wave. The voice sings in fits and starts. The chorus is built just as it is diluted. As the Greek would say, everything flows.
“Who Needs a Politician?” On a whim, for no better reason, it reminds us of “Politicians in My Eyes” by Death. Both because of the keyword in which they coincide and because of the hypnosis in the rhythm. What rhyme are endings and they speak again of the epicurean as an alternative to the political. The question, so that everyone understands it, is asked, this time, in English: “Who needs the fucking politicians?” They take a tour of a tablao with “Flamenkito”. We have seen them enjoy some Juana Chicharro gigs, so this emphasis on well-understood fusion is not surprising. The wave of the singing only ripples in the chorus, yes. The lyrics tell, walking through the twists and turns of rhetorical figures, the band’s experience on a pleasure trip to Granada, with special attention to an event that happened to them, already at the top of Sacromonte, when they crossed paths with the one who He was walking the dog and gave them a phrase on the fly, which has already become one of his most memorable lines: “he who is born drunk, lives drunk, he who is born vicious, lives vicious.” Stale air, with the aroma of desert dust, has that modern western that they call “Febricula”, but which has a longer title: “Dirty Old Man with Febricula in His Head”. For how the keyboard decorates, for how the bass lifts it, for how the guitars feed the ins and outs, for how the voice vibrates. For all these reasons, it is one of the most careful songs on the album, especially in that short space of time, what happens when they sing “Take my / I can / I love”: truncated phrases for a spontaneous chorus that becomes one of the album’s climaxes. They drop, in passing, a pearl that you should apply to the rest of the songs, because they already warn you: “The lyrics do not mean, they cannot be interpreted.” It is true that, with them, not everything has a translation, but the meaning, even if it is just emotion, does emerge from the whole. “The spirit of our time”, which they call “Jugular”, stands out for its more rock guitar and the percussive use of cymbals. The chorus here is clear, clear and well repeated. The rhyme in the first verbal conjugation is forceful and helps to seal this reflection on the devaluation of opinion, judgment and criteria. “Cubensis” is a completely different experience: none of that matters. Actually, it doesn’t matter at all. It is a trip where everything resonates louder and a source of purity seems to slide underneath with that transparent guitar that David Sánchez Damián added. They end with “Feeling Go(o)d,” the first song they wrote as a band. The same air as the Ramones entering Terri Hooley’s office. The two guitars overlap very well and in Spanish they confirm what we already knew, that they seem spontaneous, but everything is measured.
The Monotones They come out of the rock and roll mine, with the grain of the margin, but they expand to other galleries that add prefixes to the mother genre. In fact, in their tastes, influences, diets and ambitions they are as varied as they are fickle, which enriches the final product. Able to caress originality, skilled in creating atmospheres and eternalizing a rhythm, always in search of the truth without expecting to find it and champions of the most primitive instincts in their lyrics, the Monotonos have recorded a good collection of songs that make us trust the promise rather than confirmation. Now, I also tell you, like some veteran and down-home band they resemble, these are also unpredictable. As ordinary people, anyone can guess the following. Of course, therein lies a large part of their charm and talent: you can’t put the accent on them, no.