The full-bodied sound of Monte Negro breaches all linguistic barriers. Whether you speak Spanish, don\'t, or have absolutely no familiarity with romantic languages - their guitar heavy tunes will keep your head bobbing far into the night. As Monte Negro struggles to escape the shadow of Spanish music megastars like the invincible Santana and Manà, their album Cicatrix searches for sounds ranging from funk, mariachi nostalgia, and everything else.
Cicatrix hits highs and lows that\'ll musically exhaust every listener. Just when you don\'t think you can handle another hard hitting Spanish ballad, they give you a breather with some of their lighter tracks before pounding back into their delightful pop rock anthems. I especially liked "Pena Colectiva" which hits a nice middle ground between soft, easy listening and alternative rock. The "dooooo doooooooo doo doooo"s are such beautiful musical background that I\'d sit and just listen to the song play over and over.
While the underlying complexity of the pieces isn\'t all that complex, the album still exists as one of the best multi-lingual pop albums to come out so far this year. The excellence of Monte Negro comes not from the sheer beauty of instrumental and vocal combination, but rather from the transcendence of a linguistic conception that American popular music can only be of one language. This brilliant conglomeration of Spanish and English alike enhances the artist\'s skill from average to a genuine spectacle. "Lejos (Me Gusta)" plays a particularly well constructed song that finds its roots in Spanish pop while still adopting musical themes of the mainstream American pop culture scene.
Monte Negro was one of those pleasant surprises of which I knew nothing about beforehand. With every successive track I found myself more enraptured as every track seemed to improve upon the one before it. "The Part of Me You\'ve Thrown Away" is one of the closing pieces that moves at a faster rhythm, but with an added spice that separated it from the automatons of the alt rock scene swamping the American radioland.
Cicatrix is a dynamic album that serves up a healthy serving of rock with a splash of exotic flavor. Be prepared to put your iPod or CD Player on ‘repeat\'.
"Cicatrix" is on sale August 21, 2007 from Feed The Hungry Records.
