I swear that it has been circumstantial, but the truth is that it makes more sense than anything at this moment, in full summer, to sit down and write about 'Sub Lumine', the first length of Summer Spree after his EP 'Parque Figueroa' -imprescindible complement for this album-. Behind this "summer party" is hidden Álvaro Muñoz (of certain - or uncertain? - popularity for his rock project Tarik and the Fábrica de Colores, something less for his rogue alter ego Rufus T), which we could already call the Spanish Lawrence. Not only because, like Felt's elusive leader, he goes from project to project, fleeing from personalism (which also), but because, like him, his music is made in the way of another era and he is an artist like from another time, accidentally deposited in a moment in which art is measured in likes and streaming figures.
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In the case of Muñoz, instead of the obsession for the leader of Go-Kart Mozart for post-glam rock, his thing is the memory of the summers of the late 70s and early 80s. Summers of Pecos, Pablo Abraira, Paloma San Basilio, Sandro Giacobbe, Gino Paoli, Azul y Negro, Mecano, Moroder, Isabel Pantoja, Abba... Summer Spree, more than capriciously resorting to the sempiterno mantra "the 80", evokes the very essence of twilight on the beaches of the Levante or the Costa del Sol, the handwritten postcards, the smell of donpedros mixed with the perfume of the insurmountable layer of aftersun of baratillo on the hot skin by the sun, the neon signs of acid colors dyeing the brownish faces in each sidewalk, the synthesizers used for everything, even as background for the patriotic folklore...
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A trip in time that, I imagine, will have more efficiency for those who preserve precise memories of that temporal space. A journey that goes beyond the musical and also moves to its lyrics about, precisely, nights on the beach (that of the lighthouse of Trafalgar, Cádiz, is quoted with precision in the tense 'Poniente'), impossible or truncated loves by the rogue life, despechos and jealousy. A whole argument worthy of 'The rich also cry' -another memory of those same days-. Although, in this marasmus of delicious melodramatism, Muñoz slips other more personal and current themes, such as reading - scaling and beautiful - as a farewell to the death of someone close in the apparently light 'Remembrance of a ghost '; or that portrait of so many ridiculous guru swarming around the 'Ya te llamo yo' music scene; or the enraged destructive outburst against posture and "ageism" that is the magnificent 'Después de esto' and its credible "¡os odio a todos!".
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In 'Sub Lumine', more than pointing to "80's" with a certain tone of perverse irony in proposals of "cool" vitola like those of Ariel Pink, John Maus or Sean Nicholas Savage, Álvaro has a purely emotional vocation, in the same measure that many songs by Pulp, Linda Mirada, Betacam, Limiza and Bart Davenport have it. With them he is joined by the majestic use of guitars as the perfect counterpoint to the bath of synths and, above all, the manifest will to make the songs as perfect as possible, round and timeless, visibly capable of resisting the test of being interpreted in a very different tessitura. Thus, what there is in common behind the airs of canzone of 'Remembrance of a ghost' or 'Secondary actor' -very funny, its sentimental/actorial parallelism-, the brilliant pop rock like 'Something's Changed' from 'I heard it in a bar' (with a disturbing voice filter), the dark technop of 'Ya te llamo yo' or the spirit The Cars from 'After this ' -that uncommon resurgence, when it seems drowned in a false ending- are always great melodies and a supine elegance to dress up and make the songs beautiful.
The coldest hour', an extraordinary balladon that emulates with all the law to the great songs of Harry Nilsson, The Carpenters, Todd Rundgren or Carole King, worthy of leaving the strings in any piano bar. It is a pity that this 'Sub Lumine' and its stratospheric songs, which only loosen slightly in their most grim final straight, have all the appearance of going to become a secret reserved - unfortunately - to a few, those who can not avoid the tenderness and pure emotion of these songs that establish a direct sentimental connection with our childhood / adolescence, with eternity as the ultimate aspiration. ,
strong>Rating
: 8.1/10
> The best: 'Coldest hour', 'After this', 'Memory of a ghost', 'Secondary actor', 'Young'
You'll like it if you like it : Linda Mirada, Bart Davenport, Betacam, the Pulp of the first EPs
Listen to him: Spotify, Bandcamp"

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