3 out of 5

Label: Flexidiscos, DIscos Mascarpone

Produced by: Pablo Peiró

So close!

After a perfect debut and a somewhat struggling-to-define-themselves followup, poppy noise rockers Cuello head further down a more streamlined rock sound, but in so doing effect more confidence in that as well. This does encourage a continuance of the tapered song structure of Modo Eterno, however, it also allows room to tack back on some of the experimentation that was backgrounded on that disc. The result: about half an album of perfect songs, and half an album that leans more toward the evolved power pop of Weezer than, say, the evolved rawness of Toadies; the net is a similar ‘not quite’ vibe as the previous disc, but with a lot more promise that continuing to gain confidence in this approach might lead to more tracks like awesome opener ‘Trae tu cara y decórala bien.’ …Of course, things could go the other way, and deliver an album full of somewhat predictable singalong rock (maybe predicting the latter, we get like a requisite “mature” band moment here with an interstitial acoustic track), but I’ll keep being wishy-washy and suggest that might be fine as well – the frustration is that the band is going half and half.

Trae tu Cara almost literally does that half-and-half by song, playing slick but dense noise rock, with some intermingling melodies the special sauce, and then switching over to a very cleaned up bit of catchy riffage and chorus. They admittedly sound similar, but the former, to my ears, is more impactful and less ephemeral: it’s the catchiness, but with nuance. The production on the album – once more from Pablo Peiró – is a cut above Modo Eterno, though, balancing out the guitars and giving the bass some forefronting; a punchy sound that works for either version of tune I’m mentioning above.

The song by song divide isn’t fully exact, unfortunately, otherwise I think the disc would maybe come out ahead in my rankings. Rather, the first half has a couple extra bangers, whereas the last half leans more into the simpler stuff, which makes the wrap up not as memorable as how we start out. But there are at least enough songs that stick to make it through the whole listen, meaning I’m still humming some tunes, and looking forward to seeing how things move along on Cuello’s next release.