One of the most exciting rock bands in Spain and also worldwide (…) LA ZANCADILLA Marcos Gendre
Alado sincera is set to release its fifth studio album. Entitled La misma figuración ‘The Same Figuration,’ the LP lasts a mere 22 minutes. Enough for time for the Igualada-based group to martial up what is surely their boldest effort to date. As can be seen in ‘Palimpsesto’ (2009 ) and ‘Pacífico’ (2012) , Alado sincera has been growing ever more noncomormist. Remaining true to the ethos embodied in their discourse, they have built a solid musical identity. Nothing short of a Herculean task, to be sure, but the results are more than encouraging.
With a song format of less than two minutes per track, La misma figuración constitutes an effort to consciously constrict its expression, motifs, and resources. It is the perfect context for triggering heuristics, trial and error, and flights of extraordinary imagination. Despite the economic use of metric structures, the album engages playfully in countless evocative harmonic and rhythmic arrangements.
The lyrical content is strongly transversal, conveyed through forceful images. While it is easy to spot contemporary issues, one must guard against searching for referents and anecdotal interpretations: this is not an exercise in attention seeking. Dogmatic stances, control through fear and terror, and the presumption of a moral high ground are not taken up in this record (much less answered). Rather, the songs reflect upon the intention of creating new assumptions, brainstorming “impossibilities,” and gambling on song/mind experiments; certain tracks use elements of misdirection so that we unexpectedly find ourselves suddenly thinking ‘outside of the box’. By entitling the album La misma figuración ‘The Same Figuration,’ Alado sincera seems to be daring to question the notion of song format that they themselves have traditionally used. Even the album cover foreshadows the zoom-out on the contents of the disc itself, a sort of subjective snapshot of the process that includes even the outtakes, as well as the tools of their craft. How should we communicate a message through a rock song today? And, of course, how should that message be in Spain? Is it necessary? To what extent is it useful?
