Foresia – Pueto Pa´ Mi
In the 2000s, rap-metal and nu-metal bands from the U.S. achieved global fame. The majority of their songs sounded angry. The lyrics to the songs focused on the evil and misdeeds of the world. Those singers always seemed greatly affected. When they weren’t complaining about a romantic partner who had wronged them, most often, they were complaining about how the world was unfair.
You were right to be distrustful of some of these bands. Most of them, yes, we now know, were rich American kids playing dress-up. They raged against capitalism while signing major record deals throughout their careers. They visited the Zapatistas in Chiapas as tourists and brought back souvenirs. And beyond that, they rarely visited all of the places that demanded their attention in nearby countries.
Central America is, technically, a region of North America and, in this writer’s view, the most beautiful and vibrant part of it. Still, countries like the Dominican Republic, as well as its neighbours, have inherited difficult histories. The people there have earned the right to be angry, although they very rarely choose to use it. When they do, they might just manage to be more convincing than their U.S. peers.
Foresia’s “Pueto Pa´ Mi” rings out the same kind of combative powers as 2000s nu-metal but wins by bringing a sense of righteousness, not to mention a musical control, that is missing from many of those recordings. The band’s obvious passion, the truthfulness of their words, also help to make this an exciting recording, something that is rarely a guarantee in rock nowadays.
Spiraled – My Love
Traditionally, rock bands that are successful create a show, and repeat it for decades, or until the final ticket-buying audience member has failed to show up. This is all well and good. Marketing experts might claim that these sorts of group simomply “know their brand,” that they “cornered the market,” and they’ve conducted “a successful evaluation of the public’s needs.”
But if you think about it differently, it’s likely that these musicians never evolved their skills past the point that they need to put on the show. That seems like a tremendous bore. What a life it must be to only know one trick and to have to do it every other night in order to get paid. That doesn’t sound like the life of an artist, that sounds like the life of a trained seal.
Spiraled’s ambitious, expressive brand of progressive metal must’ve taken a good deal of discipline, content improvement, and arduous study of TOOL. This is not a composition that a musician will be able to come up with within the first days of picking up an instrument, but rather proof of lifelong commitment. And, while the intro to the Georgian group’s song recalls TOOL’s “Schism” in minute detail, Spiraled use this as the basis for their interesting work, not as their objective.
