Labels: Existencia
Review by: Andy Malcolm
If you are the kind of person who enjoys honest to goodness, pure, belted out emo, then you are pretty much starved at the moment. There is not a lot of it about. But fret ye not! These Spaniards are here to ease your worries. I was pretty much of the opinion that European bands had long since given up on playing emo properly, but that is clearly not the case with bands such as Brito, Rabbit Theory and Birds are Spies putting out records in the past few years. Ciudad Del Cabo deal in the hard hitting groove, hoarse sobbed vocals and writhing around on the floor. This is picking up on elements of classic French emo, the intense vocals and the spellbinding fractured melody that is buried within the sound. That is always the crucial component in music such as this, you need a thread of sorrowful tune to latch on to. On the opener Ciudad nail it to perfection. On track 2 they careen out of control like Pelham 1 2 3, “THE LIGHTS ARE ALL GREEN!”. This song hurtles, the guitar sound is a beauty, like something off a Van Pelt record with the volume and speed cranked up. Finally they hit a red light and the song winds down amidst tears and regrets. The first song on the b-side doesn’t really pack the punch of the other two songs – meandering along without gathering momentum or urgency. The final song ups things again, once more seeming to borrow from the Van Pelt / Native Nod. Everything is scruffily recorded, with the vocals sneakily mixed in there, audible but the distortion of the guitars takes precedence.
This is for the most part a fucking incredible 7″, and if you enjoy emo at all, then you should be listening to this right now.