Is the world ready for Puerto Rican hard rock?<\/p>\n
Why not? In a genre that too often has stagnated due to a lack
\nof fresh ideas, new blood is needed – and why shouldn’t it come
\nfrom other cultures?<\/p>\n
Into this picture steps Puya, a Puerto Rican-American band who
\noften remind me of Rage Against The Machine meeting rapper Gerardo
\nin a dark alley. Their debut effort
\nFundamental<\/i> features some great moments, but it also shows
\nthe pitfalls that hit any band who dare to be trailblazers.<\/p>\n
The band – vocalist Sergio Curbelo, guitarist Ramon Ortiz,
\nbassist Harold Hopkins and drummer Eduardo Paniagua – merge
\ndifferent cultures and musical styles into their own mix. Changing
\nlanguages from Spanish to English mid-stream isn’t uncommon (hence
\nthe comparison to Gerardo), and you don’t need to speak Spanish to
\nunderstand the power behind some of the words. (Translations are
\nprovided in the liner notes, but they’re so poorly laid out that
\nit’s damned near impossible to follow them, especially while
\nlistening to the music.)<\/p>\n
Being one of the first hardcore Spanglish bands is daunting
\nenough for Puya – but there is musical uncertainty on
\nFundamental<\/i>. Often, it doesn’t seem like the band knows
\nwhich direction they want to take their music. Should they sound
\nlike Rage Against The Machine? Should they sound like a hip-hop
\nband? Should they throw elements of their Hispanic heritage into
\nthe music? Or should they try to do everything at once?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Puya tries to be everything to every side of
\nthemselves on
\nFundamental<\/i> – bad move, because it turns out to be the
\nmusical equivalent of taking a sportscar, revving it up to 100,
\nthen throwing it in reverse.<\/p>\n
Mixing Spanish and English is not the issue here; tracks like
\n“Oasis,” “Remora” and the title cut all show that such a mix works,
\nand works well. It’s that I can be listening to
\nFundamental<\/i> and getting into a good Rage-like vibe, only to
\nhave things come to a screeching halt, and to have a more hip-hop
\nlike beat come into the picture (“Whatever”).<\/p>\n
If Puya is guilty of anything, it’s that they try to do too much
\ntoo soon on
\nFundamental<\/i>. Had they settled on one main musical style,
\nthen tried to work in an occasional flavor, the album would have
\nworked better. But overambition gets the better of the band on
\nFundamental<\/i>, leaving some wonderful tracks to get overrun by
\nthe tidal wave.<\/p>\n
I have no doubts that Puya have a killer album in their catalog.
\nUnfortunately,
\nFundamental<\/i> isn’t it – but it’s a start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7312],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-38797","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-puya","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38797"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}