Why does she have a sword? I don’t know.
[Video][Website]
[5.25]
Brad Shoup: This one’s all pulse and very little heart. In between choruses the bass kinda jogs in place. The contrast of glum delivery and the lightly danceable backing makes me want nothing more than to put on an Erasure tune.
[3]
Andrew Casillas: On paper, an “empowered” Javiera Mena would be a lock-solid bet. But the attitude doesn’t seem to fit her in any tangible way. I’ll add to the chorus of “why is this the second single instead of [“Sufrir”/”Luz de Piedra de Luna”/insert your other favorite song here]??” Regardless, even the worst song on Mena is still half-awesome.
[5]
Iain Mew: The brief sally of excitement that is the synth break before the final chorus aside, this is an extremely lightweight and inconsequential thing that has no edges at all and doesn’t even embrace or emphasize its softness in any strong way. It just slips past, inoffensive but unmemorable. I want to pull the “it’s just because it’s foreign language and I’m missing the meaning” card because I like her so much generally, but it’s a bit weak to do so when clearly that hasn’t affected her other songs.
[5]
Alfred Soto: The rhythm plods when any song about the first star should soar and sparkle; it lets down Mena’s lyric about dead friends. But she can inject pathos into any electro setting, especially when the synths and sequencers go crazy at the 2:50 mark.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Javiera Mena is capable of good-to-amazing electro-pop numbers. And, bafflingly, also this: a politely plodding bit of flowery synth dullness in which even Mena’s coolly expressive voice sounds as if she’s as bored as I am. I love the 80s, but there’s really a time and place for everything.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: Mena was the most overlooked disco-pop album of 2010, and possibly of the last decade, at least in most anglophone circles. (Not here, of course.) The second single released from the album may not be quite as lovely and beguiling as “Hasta La Verdad,” but it’s a better single; the electropop pulse and Mena’s fluttering voice insert her into the Robyn/Solange/Goldfrapp tradition of slightly waifish, slightly tuff left-field dance-pop singers.
[8]
Mallory O’Donnell: One of Javiera’s most bracing, wide-eyed vocals is brought into sharp contrast against what could be her least futuristic beat–Bobby O bass and Chris Lowe chords with a dollop of golden era synth-pop atmospherics. As always, it’s glorious, soaring stuff, with the retro trappings a point of reference, not a crutch.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: Apparently the truck driver’s gear change still works if the driver’s asleep.
[4]