by Rainy Maple Sugar Candy (@hpfblog)
Melenas is a four-piece shoegazey synth-pop band from Pamplona. Yes, the city of the Running of the Bulls, capital city of the Spanish region of Navarre (or the Basque region of Nafarroa, depending on whom you ask). Much like their home city, Melenas’ 2023 record Ahora resists sitting still for others’ observation. It is in itself a meditative journey that contemplates the nature and meaning of time. From the first words of the opening track, the listener is forced to make a decision: “Ahora… ahora… ahora… ahora o nunca más.” (“Now… now… now… now or never again.”) The lyrics and melody here possess a deep, chant-like quality that set the tone for the rest of the record and are liable to entrance any listener, Spanish speaker or not. To frost the linguistic cake even further, bits of lyrics appear in Basque at least a couple of times throughout the record; once in the song “1986” simply to say, “barkatu aita” (“sorry dad”) and once more, in a passage sung to the narrator’s mother-in-law in “Flor de la Frontera”. Slipping into the non-primary language of an artistic piece always makes it feel like something needs to be at least slightly obscured even while being expressed out in the open.
Musically, this record is largely atmospheric but never boring. Many of the tracks contain pleasant instrumental sections in which the keys often run the show. These sections feel reminiscent of some of the more laid back songs by Mexican rock giants Café Tacuba. The rhythm section is tight and sits right on top of the beat, which makes the more upbeat tracks feel like they could speed up and go off the rails at any second. This never happens. On the contrary, they create a subtle but enticing tension that pulls listeners right along with the beat. Vocally, it is difficult to argue with the beauty of a band in which four women sing together like this. Guitarist and sometimes-keyboardist Oihana Herrera provides the main vocals and is joined by bandmates Leire Zabala, María Del Amor Zubiaur, and Lauri Palmer as the coros (chorus).
Melenas have established themselves as a band with strong pop sensibilities that don’t get in the way of taking listeners somewhere new, and Ahora is autological: a record about time and moving through it that feels completely Now. It moves and breathes like water, irresistible whether you’re diving fully into the depths or simply dozing on the banks and gazing in.