Ho ho ho, delightfully devilish…
[Video]
[6.45]
Alfred Soto: I’m bored with devil/angel cliches, but Xavi’s way with short and vowel sounds (especially with a’s) and especially that fiercely strummed guitar — oh, that guitar — represent novelty for a moribund top twenty. Now I need to hear it on the radio.
[7]
Will Adams: If nothing else, a stunning display of the numerous timbres that a guitar can produce. Bonus point for the outro where the song suddenly turns into “Iris.”
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: lilith is so cool u guys
[10]
Katherine St. Asaph: Dudes can make profoundly undevilish songs about their supposedly devilish lovers too!
[3]
Ian Mathers: Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with the nuances of this genre, but “La Diabla” feels like it has real “we’ve got Eslabon Armado y Peso Pluma at home” vibes to me.
[7]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: There’s something a little too theater-kid in Xavi’s vocals — he’s putting something on like he’s the Meat Loaf of corridos — but the strength of the interlocking hooks here, both vocal and instrumental, is enough to overcome the slight twinge of embarrassment I get when he wails about Balenciaga.
[7]
Leah Isobel: The way “La Diabla” insists of running Xavi’s voice through filters on, like, every other line gives it a strangely frantic feel. I guess it’s supposed to up the intensity, but it comes across as a bit try-hard. I love the minimal, melancholy outro passage, though.
[6]
Brad Shoup: The strings are yanked back like a yo-yo trick, or a spider darting back into its hole: the dryness of the mix is great if you want to hear instrumental interplay. If you want any other kind, then the effect is that of someone shooting his shot with the last-call lights on.
[7]
Mark Sinker: Bit lazy to unleash it twice but I will never not love the telephone-effect voice, here deployed to say “Christian Dior” in two places (for somewhat unparseable reasons). It’s usually traced back to “Yellow Submarine” in pop but I’m pretty sure that George Martin borrowed it from the Goon Show. And of course pioneer crooner Rudy Vallee often sang through an actual real megaphone, like a hundred years ago. Meanwhile Xavi isn’t yet 20, and looks 12.
[7]
TA Inskeep: His voice belies his years (he’s not even 21 & sounds like a norteño singer some 20 years his senior), and the simple acoustic dual guitar accompaniment works in the song’s favor.
[6]
Taylor Alatorre: “La Víctima” minus the middle-school misogyny, so what we’re left with is a frenetic strumming pattern with inherently diminishing returns, which is just good enough for a passing score today but likely won’t be in the future, assuming there is one.
[6]