It’s ROCK MONDAY! And our first guys have been around for ages, in Argentina…
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[5.86]
Edward Okulicz: Not even close to being one of their best singles, but taken as another cherry on top of their very varied discography, “La Lanza” is reliably pleasurable. It’s not so much quiet in the sense that not a lot is going on — there’s actually quite a lot going on, there are hooks, funky guitars and danceability. It’s that all these high-importance elements are themselves low-key. Maybe the chorus trails off too soon and too mildly, but the point is the groove.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: English-language rock has mostly left this kind of thing behind: few US or UK bands would be willing to spend the length of a song building up a smart, delicately-expressed image of lost love, one that can be danced to as well as it can be enjoyed for the pure expression of melody. The unofficial rule of Anglophone rock these days is “poetry, danceability, and melodicism: pick two,” to its lasting discredit.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: Sounded like a slinky electro-pop song at first, and then transformed into pure slink. Nice, but seems a bit too content in its strut.
[6]
Josh Langhoff: The meandering chord progression betrays either creative unease or an obsession with difference at the expense of pleasure — like, why settle for one perfectly good key when you can write a song in three different keys? Along with the careful lyrics and airy vocals, “La Lanza”‘s chords create the same diffuse pop-in-theory vibe as XTC at their stuffiest.
[3]
Iain Mew: I gave this a play count well into the double figures before writing about it, which doesn’t happen often. As usual, it means that I can’t quite figure it out. Partly it’s the language difference, no doubt, but it’s also the knottiness of its groove, the way that its series of bright elements from synths to bouncy wordless chants seem to circle each other in the gloom without ever quite connecting. I keep waiting for something more to cohere out of it and it never does, but the waiting process is an enjoyable one all the same.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Something compelling waits beyond the louche appeal of the song. Perhaps they haven’t figured out what it is yet, so they strike a cool stance and wait for it to magically happen.
[5]
Brad Shoup: It’s a twerpy take on an artsy pop sound that should be bygone. In the case of “La Lanza,” the timidity is increased with the muted presentation. You’ll be squinting hard for details: croaked three-part harmony, a mouth-harp burr that refreshes every time a bass note sounds. The stakes are deliberately kept low, but still Babasónicos step around an alt-rock pit of despair. Imagine if they fell in.
[6]