At a time when everything seems to have to go through the switchboard and provincial artists struggle to survive outside the capital, the historic independent scene of Gijón is becoming strong and fighting to continue boasting of its distinguished renown, now having an illustrious quarry that renews its present and does justice to its past victories. Among the brave people responsible for this particular feat we find the Asturian quintet Tiger and Diamondwho after two studio albums seem to have in their hands the necessary tricks and tricks so that we can consider their “Winning Attitude” (Astro / Attack!, 23) as the definitive movement of his career.
Jon Álvarez, Coke Makaha, Iker González, Álex Carantoña and Sete Deville must have been very sure of themselves to title their present work like this; aware, perhaps, that among their respective ten new songs there are also some of the best cuts they have made to date. What does seem certain is that this third LP is the unequivocal result of laborious perseverance and progressive artistic growth that has led them to evolve exponentially and tangentially from the most rudimentary garage to a more sophisticated and melodic pop, a consequence of the various additions. that the band has experienced throughout these years and their consecutive contributions. A backdrop with which its five members now feel comfortable and confident enough to craft some of the most sincere and direct lyrics in their catalog (“We can not be friends”) or conjugate in parallel both its most confessional side (“My Problems and Me”) as the most self-referential and almost parodic (“Art and Fashion in Gijón”)
As director in this orchestra of truths spit in the face we find Pablo Martínez, vocalist of the extinct Desakato and responsible for the production of an album that clearly shows the band’s intention to engrave itself in the listener’s memory (especially through of choruses as effective as “Cunningham’s Best Goal”, conjugated in the mouth of none other than the legendary Fernando Alfaro), without giving up a cathartic distortion that refers to the original chapters of the formation (“Runners of India”) or the pleasure of enjoying and giving ourselves with unusual lysergic lasciviousness passages of torrid psychedelia in which we will want to settle without a deadline (“Winning Attitude”).
With perversity aside, the brightest manners take over the scene (“Doña Carmen, Without Fear”) and the band’s verb makes the ordinary become almost chimerical, because those are, after all, the benefits of a good rock album; to make their cuts take us out of our reality with a ragged voice, riff and scoundrel verse. It matters little that behind the boldness of “Winning Attitude” a trace of irony is hidden, because as soon as the instrumentation of their respective songs (in which the band’s new additions have done their homework) begins to whistle in our ears, we blindly jump into that mixture of liberated truth and disbelieving euphoria of its themes. A decisive change in the fate of the band that guarantees the good health of the scene they represent.