Review Summary: The album needed in post 9/11 America that sadly no one heard...
The term hidden gem gets thrown around a lot, indie albums from this time period that were once shrugged off and forgotten about have since seen recent critical praise, but somewhere in the middle lies Read Music/Speak Spanish. A cult classic.
It’s interesting to note this album was almost never released due to the unfortunate timing of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the band almost considering not even dropping the album, but did so anyways. The poor timing might have something to do with why it sold fairly poorly.
Read Music/Speak Spanish is an oddity in it’s sound it’s very punk driven but not purely so, it’s heavy but not all the time. It’s got indie elements as well, an erratic singer, clean guitar licks that can easily change from cleanly played beautiful melodic picking to distorted angry licks thrown at the listener, the band meshes very well together the drums coming in fast pounding in break downs the bassist smoothly following along side Conor, it’s a hell of a time, and the lyrics.....
HOLY ***....honestly, some of the best lyrics Conor has penned. Ranging from topics such as a marriage built from financial dependency, political discourse, going to war specifically just to kill and not for a sense of heroism. No punches are held back, much like Fight Club, Desaparecidos takes a mirror to society and says “*** you” to it.
The raw intensity, the passion, the overall message of struggle, paranoia, isolation, disgust, and abandonment of this supposed American Dream...
Conor and the gang asks the important questions in a time that badly needed them, “What is the American Dream? Why do we dream it? Why do I save up for things to buy that I really don’t want? Will I ever be happy in my consumerist habits?”
Too bad no one listened.....
