This Drama "Loose Talk" (p)2023 Golden Robot

This Canary Islands-based band managed to sign its name into the canon of Deep Elm Records - the seminal indie label and one of the key factors in Midwest Emo bloom in the second half of the 90s. But don't expect this mini album to throw all the well-documented hallmarks of the aforementioned genre right in your face. It meets you and greets with... an acoustic guitar riff?! Yes! These six songs are entirely based on the acoustic riffage, the tight basslines and vocals balancing on the thin line between a sad sigh and a sarcastic grimace.

It strongly reminds me of "Arboreal" - the latest to date album of another loud-turned-semi-acoustic band Holywater from Galicia province. Another clear reminiscence is the [half-forgotten Georgians'] Dead Confederate "Peyote People" mini-album and its centrepiece "First Fires". 

Thus, despite their creators' emo past, these songs are not about expression of emotions, they are about keeping them inside. They're about channeling the inner tension, and they're perfect in it.

SPTF 

DOM "Warm" (p)2023 self-released

The first word that comes to mind upon listening to the new release of Domingo Aleman's "household" solo project DOM is 'visceral'. You can almost see how this music pours out of Domingo's body in its own intuitive way. How it paves its way through his skin pores. How it streams through his fingers short-circuiting the guitar strings. How it's pulsating within the drumkit (yes I know the drums are programmed but I'm not speaking of what I know, I'm only speaking of how it feels). 

The tracks are quite repetitive and it's the case when repetition transforms into captivity. That's why the longest tracks are the best here (for me personnally I'd prefer this to be glued together into one 40 minutes long piece without pauses between the tracks). As long as Domingo is not your conventional songwriter with the songs built up on some basic four chord sequences there is no standard verse-chorus structure to be found on this album. So the music just flows around to envelope you with its vibe and to move you to another place full of tribal rhythm, offbeat synths and fluid desert rock guitars.

BNDCMP