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| Desaparecidos - 'Read Music Speak Spanish' Wichita Recordings. Frontman Conor Oberst is best known for his work as Bright Eyes, acoustic introspective ramblings, he is a hero to those allergic to sunlight. But Desaparecidos (Spanish for ‘The Disappeared’) is the antithesis of that, it’s the noisy sound of Conor emerging from his darkened bedroom, rubbing his bleary eyes in the sun, not liking what he sees of the world and deciding to do what he does best: write a song about it. Although the first track deals in girl things and veers dangerously close to emo-land, by track two the real vein of the album is bought to the surface. Dusty small town America, under urban development, new Starbucks opening on every street corner, shopping malls and designer labels, people selling their soul to THE MAN and the empty lie of the American dream. And Conor is righteously fucked off with it all. Maybe he read No Logo, or maybe it’s a post-September 11th realization that everything’s not dandy with suburban bohemia, but every lyric is a frantic diatribe. “I want to pledge allegiance to the country where I live/ I don’t want to be ashamed to be American” he cries on the ironically titled ‘The Happiest Place On Earth’. ‘Survival Of The Fittest…’ and ‘$$$$’ scream and rant like At The Drive-In, the last great American guitar band with a brain and a social conscious. Although sometimes verging on embarrassing political dogmatism, the speech-like lyrics are only ever incidental to the songs. Recorded in just a week, the raw garage edge is present in every punchy pop rock song. They most sonically resemble their afro’d predecessors – distorted guitar crunches, frenetic circular riffing under hurled vocals. Keyboards and synths give tracks like ‘Manana’ a fuller sound, and extensive use is made of the sampler. In fact the album’s only real downside is that the speech samples incorporated into the end of some songs are too long, and you find yourself reaching for the skip button. While the rest of America lull themselves to sleep in the post sept-11th security of Creed and their God-awful pomp rock, and the rest of our generation spend their free time in Coffee Republic discussing what they bought from GAP at the weekend, it’s good to see a band like Desa at least attempting to poke a stick at something. Rachel. |
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