ROTURA – Al Otro Lado LP

Barcelona’s Rotura return with their second full-length, Al Otro Lado (On The Other Side), and follow-up to their 2021 debut, Estamos Fracasando (We Are Failing).

The trio continue to forge tightly honed, darkly melodic punk, teasing out a taut interplay between the band’s innate melodicism and a haunting sense of melancholy, the undeniable sense of futures being squandered. Powerfully clean sung Spanish vocals are complemented and layered with gruffer support to inject a further layer of vibrant energy, perhaps, most notably on the pulsating Jamás Podrãn (They Won’t Ever Be Able).

And as with all great melodic punk, the leanly infectious delivery belies lyrical concerns of a rather more sobering hue. The band explore a raft of compelling themes from the growing threat of authoritarian populism on the ferocious title track (‘It is always easier to hate the one next to you, It is always easier to obey and not to think’) to a bleak fear on Te Escapas (Escape) that there is no alternative to our current trajectories (‘Memories from the past, Unrest invades you, Just to think that there’s no way back).

Meanwhile, the boisterous El Aire Que Nos Qema (The Air That Burns Us) tackles environmental degradation (‘Deforestation, Desertisation, And the air that burns us’), the more sombre Nadie Eschucha (Nobody Listens) the Potemkin City veneer of tourism obsessed cities that ignore the plight of their own homeless (‘When no one listens and doesn’t want to know, Many pains are calmed when the night falls’), and the rampaging Túnel De Plastico (Plastic Tunnel) the exploitation of migrant workers (‘Crossing the strait out of necessity year after year, Sleeping in shacks after hours of exhausting work’). A fiercely bracing release that robustly locates itself somewhere between Rata Negra and Pöls, with an occasional nod to early 2000s Alkaline Trio.
—Foundation Vinyl