Review Summary: Music, what a beautiful language
Music transcends linguistic boundaries. There have been a myriad of records whose language I don’t speak before
Se Amaba Asi and there will continue to be. One such record was recommended to me here on Sputnikmusic;
Nuevo Romance by hnos munoz. I couldn’t understand a single lyric, I couldn’t derive any single meaning from it and frankly I can’t tell you what the album is about, but I can tell you about how it feels like. It’s starry and gorgeous, bursting with both hopelessness and warmth. It translates its themes of love to me not through its words, but through its spartan, minimal R&B feel.
Nuevo Romance broke the barrier its Spanish lyrics put in front of me and it managed to emotionally touch me. I come back to the album often and see it as a personal example that music doesn’t necessarily have to be sung in words I comprehend to make me feel things; music is its own universal language.
Se Amaba Asi inhabits that similar place for me.
Se Amaba Asi competently accomplishes its Latin dream-pop aspirations (with The Marias being an apt point of comparison), yet doesn't exactly excel in the qualities it presents; its sonic palette has plenty of mystique and subtle quirks, but outside of ‘El Camino’’s grand drums and funky bass and ‘Mortal’’s wailing guitars, the music consistently meanders. Its mid-tempo Latin-tinged synth-pop landscape veers on homogeneity, especially on the album’s weaker second half. The accompanying vocal work is also deliberately restrained; Raquel Berrios’ performance is hushed and technically competent, but her vocal cadences fail to
pop or captivate, whilst Del Valle doesn’t always scan as a pleasant vocalist. The very few times that their two voices merge together (e.g. the title track), there's a spark and magnetism that just isn't there on the standalone moments. Most choruses seem shell-shocked; too afraid to explode, instead gently moving the song along in the same hushed tone as the verses. Despite being uniformly hook-deficient, 'Miraverahi' and the title track provide the most dynamic choruses, without sacrificing the ethereal essence of the record.
Any other release as vocally unimpressive and sonically anemic as
Se Amaba Asi would not intrigue me enough to spare it a couple subsequent spins; yet I keep coming back to the record multiple times. I can’t quite put my finger on it — at the end of the day though, I find the entire experience to be significantly better than the sum of its parts. Flaws abound and looking at the tracks individually, there are many weak links present ('Divino Tesoro' and 'Incrédula' droop musically; 'El Empuje' and 'Mortal' are dominated by limp vocal work). However, I am able to forgive
Se Amaba Asi as a whole, because it proves the point I made in the beginning; music meets no language barriers. I don’t speak a lick of Spanish, but the record explodes with romance and intimacy. It’s dreamy and sensual, placid and personal, both in its slow production and its imperfect vocals. Let this record wash over you: It makes for the perfect quiet, pensive listen. It erupts with humanity in spite of its obvious flaws. It erupts with obvious flaws because of its humanity.
