Last Friday the new work of Joel Lopez, “Spirit Broth” (Esmerarte, 23). A recipe of eleven songs that captures the essence of A Coruña and shouts out its most real imbalances. Voice as the main ingredient and a production glazed in detail.
Xoel moves away from the light-filled lyrics of other albums like “Atlantic” (Esmerarte, 12) and shares with us his tear in the form of “sweat and blood”of “Saltpeter and Smoke”. (Un)love distilled into rhythms that could well have been born in the hands of Juan Luis Guerra or Rubén Blades. In fact, I can’t help but think about “Patria”from the Panamanian, every time the radiant begins “Brave Pout”. It is in this fifth track where that “hot spirit” of López is captured. Roots, but in movement; rawness, but cooked with finesse.
Among Latin aromas, the soul of Deluxe also sneaks in, naturally. Although this Gen Z that writes that two-mile pop-rock could taste little, “Fort Da” manages to take back nostalgia very well and mix it with new sound waves. A similar character carries “Rise Fall”where Repion finishes seasoning the Galician’s nocturnal spell.
Funky touches like those of “This is not Love” They are not missing from the menu either: it never hurts to dance between breakups. References to past songs—the “I kiss your thorn, I die in your flower” It will sound familiar to those whose lightning struck it—and foreign—whose was that? “They tell me that in bars”?—in which the care with which each phrase is seasoned is reflected. There’s even room for a fictional Blow Up spin-off around “Magical and Eternal”!
Without detaching himself from his style, Xoel has managed to capture his compositional maturity and authenticity in this slow-cooked album. Although an entire spirit does not fit in one review, in this bottle of “songs made from the heart”Yeah.