NEW ON CD
Mexican rock band Kinky
issues second CD
Kinky
Nettwerk America/Sonic 360One of the livelier "rock en Español" bands releases its second album today, and the quintet from Monterrey (a large, industrial city in the north of Mexico) gets more organic with its sound.
"Our style is a blend of authentic Mexican music that is put in the context of new technology -- a mix of techno and organic," is how singer-guitarist Gilberto Cerezo describes Kinky's hybrid sound. The band's self-titled release was a Grammy nominee last year in the Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album category, and the song "Más" from that album has been featured on television in both commercials and episodic series.
"Atlas" emphasizes more vocals and lyrics this time 'round, mixing both English- and Spanish-language songs, with the workout "Do U Like It?" being the lone instrumental. Guest John McCrea, of Cake, offers some of his typically droll spoken word on "The Headphonist," a street-savvy song that creates a picture of a city dweller isolated with his own thoughts from his intrusive surroundings.
And if "more organic" means a more liberal use of older musical stylings, then songs like "Snapshot" (complete with Norteño-like accordion), the palindrome "Salta-Lenin-El-Atlas" (an electronic romp rooted in early Santana) and the statement "Not Afraid" are all proof positive.
But Kinky continues to mine its mix-and-match groove, with great success, on the album opening "Presidente," the danceable "Pos Que Se Venegan" (a confluence of old and new that addresses the loss of the natural world) and the mythology of "Minotauro."
The two final tracks finds the band in a more reflective mood, compared with the lively restlessness of the songs that precedes them. "María José" uses the clever metaphor of the tequila worm as a symbol of rebirth that rises out of drunken despair, and the final hidden track sounds, to these non-Spanish ears, like a more acoustic-based love song.
Click for online
calendars and events.
