You can forget all about Tex-Mex, welcome to Tech Mex. Sorry could not resist that but it is a good enough intro to describe this veritable feast of beats from an album whose full unwieldy title is El Último Minuto (Antes de que Tu Mundo Caiga). In case you wanted a translation it’s ‘Muzzle Your Last Minute (Before Your World Drops) so more end of the world songs! It’s out on the 17th December so if you manage to get this by then you will have four days to use it as your soundtrack before we all go to hell in a handcart. Hocico themselves are obviously false prophets and not true believers of any rapture though as they have booked a show at London’s Electrowerkz on the 9th March 2013.
I should really have heard this Mexican duo before as they have no less than six previous albums to their name and stacks of other releases. I remember there being a buzz about 2010 album Tiempos de Furia but it escaped me and this was my first introduction to cousins Racso Agroyam and Erk Aicrag which are anagrams of their real names.
There was no real surprise on what I was hearing on pressing play and getting attacked by first number ‘T.O.S. Of Reality’. This is a futuristic landscape of bouncing dark club beats and synthesized hellish grooves. Vocals are not up front but are rasped away in a style that is louder than a whisper but a long way from a scream. It works well though and constantly gnaws away at you whilst the thumping music leaves your feet unable to not join in and dance away to it all. Reviewing it on a Monday morning is probably not the best way to listen to this, it is 3AM off your face on a Sunday morning sort of thing, hmmm did I mention the Electrowerkz? The album is 55 minutes long and gives you plenty of scope to work yourself up as the songs thud away; the industrial EBM flow of it quick to take control of your body leaving you jerking around like a puppet on a string (although not in a Sandie Shaw kind of way). Each and every one of these dark electro songs stands up in its own right and it is nice to get a disc like this which is not made up of remixes of half the songs. Obviously the music is not particularly original, once you have heard one act like Suicide Commando or Hocico you could say you have heard them all, there is only so much you can do when your music is all electronic but style wise this lot strike as being amongst the best I have heard.
Faster numbers such as ‘The Watched’ have you bouncing that bit more frantically and I like the way the atmosphere here is dark and brooding. Listening to the album as a whole you constantly feel on edge as though you are teetering on the brink of catastrophe. I guess they don’t call the style dark for nothing! ‘Polarity’ stands out here as it has a real adrenalized flow about it and one that really gets beneath the skin. I actually loved ‘Mundo Imposible’ though as the instrumental track took me back to sinister soundtrack music from evil alien films like Xtro in the 80’s. As for ‘Vile Whispers’ well if that toon is not based on Dr Who well slap my tits and call me Shirley! ‘Over The Limit’ is probably the best number to get everyone cutting their stuff to, proper slamming with a real dark and dangerous vibe about it. Final number is the title track with a mournful piano sound heralding the end draping us in a nice lament for wherever the journey takes us after. I was reminded a bit of Future Sounds OF London ‘Dead Cities’ mood wise, which is very apt!
This has certainly made me want to check out the rest of the group’s stuff and if we are still around that gig is certainly tempting too. Hocico have handled this ultimate day of the dead with finesse.
(Pete Woods 8/10)
05/12/2012 at 8:45 pm
Good, aren’t they? I bought “Memorias Atras”, having overheard it playing in Resurrection Records one day, and all the things you say ring true. Sounds like I’ll soon have two of theirs in my collection.
05/12/2012 at 8:49 pm
RIP to Resurrection Records, shame they are no longer out there turning people on to good sounds in Camden.
10/12/2012 at 3:34 pm
now that’s a good review without the usual cliches. This band stands way above your current aggrotech garbage despite the fact they use nearly all the ingredients of the genre. Racso Agroyam is obviously a classicaly trained musician, with an ear outside the “hellektro ghetto”, wich allow him to write catchier and clevier themes. Some of them would have made great 80s horror movie soundtrack, the ones that give you chills and stick in your head forever. Others would make great synthpop melodies if they were extracted from the hellish, aggressive context (but the contrast works well). The intrumentals are where you can feel the real creativity and talent of the guy. Unfortunately they’re reduced to the minimum on the last albums, to make room to crowdpleasing club anthems (I have nothing against crowdpleasing club anthems, especially cause Hocico’s ones are also above the rest…well, most of the time). Earlier works back in the nineties were even more inspired, unique and adventurous, but they managed to keep their very special edge until now. Taking the last album, I hope we’ll have more “T.O.S of reality” in the future than “Intruder”. Following them for nearly 15 years, I trust them on that.
20/06/2015 at 12:33 pm
The real translation of the album title is The Last Minute [Before Your Wold Falls].