ALBUM REVIEW: Spanish Love Songs – A Brief Intermission in the Flattening of Time (Pure Noise Records)
Los Angeles indie-punks Spanish Love Songs are back with a new record mixing new songs with previously-released bits and bobs, and as ever I’m utterly smitten.
It’s a bit of a mish-mash, in all honesty, but once you get onto their wavelength, everything this band does just cuts through the noise of life and seeps into your soul.
This release adds four new tracks to the No Joy Sessions, released digitally this summer, and 2023’s Doom And Gloom Sessions, with the set intended to bridge the gap between 2023’s excellent fourth album No Joy (reviewed here) and their next record, which they’re busy writing.
Taking things chronologically, the Doom And Gloom Sessions see SLS cover four songs you’ll probably be familiar with, especially The Killers’ Smile Like You Mean It, which takes on a whole new level of world-weariness in the hands of frontman Dylan Slocum.
Rilo Kiley’s Portions For Foxes, Jimmy Eat World’s Futures and Grandaddy’s Now It’s On get the same treatment, and SLS do them all more than justice, while stamping their own mark on the songs.
The No Joy Sessions saw the band release new stripped-down versions of four songs from No Joy, plus new song Lifers Too, which is a sort of a sequel to Lifers, which opens the album.
They’ve got form for this sort of thing; in 2022 they completely reimagined their wonderful 2020 album Brave Faces Everyone as Brave Faces Etc, to huge acclaim from fans and critics alike.
The new four-song EP With A Brief Intermission in the Flattening of Time sees Spanish Love Songs bridge old and new eras with their usual quiet intensity.
It is made up of three new songs featuring impressive collaborations; Cocaine & Lexapro ft. NYC indie-folk singer Kevin Devine, Berlin ft. Scranton PA indie-rockers Tiger’s Jaw, and Heavenhead ft. LA tenderpunk pioneer Illuminati Hotties. For SLS they’re surprisingly upbeat – until you listen to the lyrics, which deal in their usual mix of tragedy and despair.
The newest track, Lifers Too ft. Pennysylvania emo outfit The Wonder Years, is a captivating offering about not expecting to live for as long as you have and grappling with that realisation. Again, they’ve transformed it from the original into something new and wonderful.
Spanish Love Songs are a band who connect emotionally on so many different levels, and I can’t wait to hear what they come up with next. For now, this compilation will do very nicely, thank you. 8.5/10.
