That almost 30 years is nothing. after that “The friend of the storms” (94), third and last work of Surfin’ Bugs that finished cutting the umbilical cord of the eighties and opened wide the doors of the original native indie, with the still smoking first two point-blank shots that marked a before and after in national music: the rawness of “The photographer of the sky” (91) and the definitive modernity and blow into the emotional memory of “Carnal Brothers” (92). They return now rejuvenated from the “Beyond” (23), traversing space and time with twelve resplendent and feverish songs, sharp and open grave. And it is that the thing is very serious, the people of Albacete have marked a conceptual and existentialist work in which they border on excellence. Adding to the essence of the parent band, the freshness and sound growth experienced and collected by each member throughout these decades, alone, with Chucho, Mercromina and Burrito Panza. With these infallible wickers, in addition to several previous commemorative meetings that always made us smack our lips for this long-awaited possibility that has just crystallized, Fernando Alfaro (voice and guitars), Joaquín Pascual (guitars, second voice and keyboards), Carlos Cuevas (drums) and José Manuel Mora (bass) finally decide to unify their energies and, under the co-production of Fino Oyonarte (with vocal appearance included), they mark this fourth, outstanding and addictive “Beyond”to me, their best set of songs to date.
To the house brand sonic power intact, with Pixies and Velvet Underground in the air, add extra nuances, luminosity and freshness, with Isabel León on choirs and a brilliant session of horns that comes and goes. Special mention also for the brilliant artwork of the album, by the hand of another stellar from La Mancha, Joaquín Reyes.
From the initial electric and blinding whiplash (instantaneous hit), which bursts you in the chest and lifts you off the ground, “Machine that does not stop”, with a chorus that you will not be able to get out of your head and you will sing until you lose your voice live, to the resplendent acoustic oscillation of “The horse of the sea”, with precious piano arrangements; going by “the black blackness” festive of “The dance from beyond”crossing spatial borders in a festival with an aftertaste of Tex-Mex and cha-cha-chá in the town’s cemetery.
And the bottom of this? “Beyond”? Well, another dimension, within the reach of only a select few. Fernando in a state of grace, with the light in his bowels intact and that ease of “stick your fingers into the center of the liver (or heart), open it like a loaf and distribute it to the dogs”. Alfaro, beyond good and evil, reaching new poetic heights and displaying his personal most brilliant, stark and ironic kamikaze lyricism on the surface, weaving verses soaked in crude daily life, apocalyptic mysticism, love and death, from loneliness and isolation of the pandemic. “How cool it would be if climate change was for the better…”. Of that God who laughs at all of us in the amusing cutting proximity of “Your own Christmas”with bitter reminiscences of storage parties that we spend toasting next to the mirror or screens during confinement, to the throbbing epic at that sulfur crossroads where Velvet merges with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, a “Lotus Europa” that oozes nihilism and hopelessness “in a world already dead”, between traditional images and dystopian landscapes, with the aroma of “White Lotus” cañí and the galloping self-devouring decadence of European society hot on our heels.
The healing melancholy of that sea of memories that we carry inside in “Light of the Mediterranean”, gives us a dreamlike extra life, with some magical strings that shine brighter than the sun’s rays and teleport us to Greece at times, dodging the juggling of an ever-present grim reaper. we continue “Lighting the End” and displaying morphine atmospheres in the purest Black Francis and company style, with a rhythmic base that leads the way and energetic outbursts over and over again, echoes of the Boston band that also roar with force in the hurricane “I who have seen you”con Surfin’ Bugs scratching and centrifuging us inside as before.
“Signs” stops time and floats like a ball of fire, between synthesized and spectral mists, with a brief and vibrant catchy moment of escape and hope just before equator: “And I will turn my blind eyes / towards you and love you I want, / and embrace us all at the end. / I will turn my fierce eyes / towards God and the whole world, / and embrace us all at the end”. And from hymn to hymn, with Fernando always walking on the wild side, burning the ships of desire with the band as one. “Mortal”, while Lou Reed smiles, immortal, from beyond and beyond.
In the final stretch, two of the most experimental and involving pieces, the floating and colossal “Ultraphonic conversation at 4 am”, a beautiful nightmare signed by Joaquín Pascual in which you will run the risk of disappearing (warned and warned you are); and the auction, to finish vanishing, from the hand of “The Invisible Woman” velvety spell that will take you out to sea without you noticing. Wonder, to infinity and beyond with Surfin’ Bugs.