Literally translating as “strange days”, Melenas‘ new album Dias Raros gains an almost prophetic allure when confronted with the current situation, especially if one refers to the band’s own explanation of the title as, “those days where you spend more time inside than outside. Inside your own self, inside your bedroom and your own universe thinking about your wishes, dreams, memories, obsessions or fears.” An impromptu still-life portrait of the Spring of 2020, then.
This is the quartet’s second album, succeeding their late 2017 self-titled debut and a series of shows that included appearances at both Primavera and Eurosonic, granting the band enough international visibility for Trouble In Mind to notice them. Echoing that paradoxical mix of serenity and excitement we’ve learned to identify and love in bands who manage to deliver the most competent results without ever taking themselves too seriously in the process, Dias Raros blends perfect melancholia with inebriating garage fuzz, finding an energetic parallel in West Coast acts like Bleached, La Luz, or Allah-Las.
With a sound often evoking the hallucination-inducing late Summer heat (“29 Grados” – “29 degrees” – seems to be a fitting reference to this phenomenon), Melenas demonstrate a remarkable ability to cross global pop influences with a specific ethos deriving from their geographical situation in a similar way to what their Iberian sisters Pega Monstro did with 2017 album Casa De Cima. It’s something that results not exclusively from them sticking to their mother tongue lyric-wise, but is certainly aided by it.
From contemplative “El Tiempo Ha Pasado” to danceable, slightly more twee “No Puedo Pensar”, Dias Raros encapsulates a whole road trip in little over half an hour, making the experience so immensely palpable you can almost feel the ocean wind running through your hair. “Los Alemanes”, “3 Segundos”, “Primer Tiempo”— they all seem custom-made to feed warm nights of careless dancing with friends during which the world becomes an external concept and everything exists in the here and the now. “Ya No Es Verano” (“it’s not Summer anymore”) fittingly appears before “Vals” comes to slow-dance us away in the arms of a love that we know deep down won’t last after the end of the season.
Another band to be added to your “must-see-live-when-this-is-over” list, Melenas will easily become a new addiction of yours as soon as you properly tune into what Dias Raros has to offer. The album leaves us nostalgic for something that we knew was as fleeting and changeable as life’s cycles, yet still hope will return one day — and that’s one of the most delicious feelings in the world.
