When we first heard “Tu Casa Nueva,” we found ourselves powerless against its 80s new wave charm. The song is up there with most of the big guitar sounds of the decade, thanks to its gigantic hooks and great production. Of course, El Último Vecino is not the only musical outfit that references the decade of big hair and neon everything, but they could easily be the only band not trapped in an endless loop of (ironic) admiration for those times. In other words, they can take the sounds that made those times iconic and enduring for other generations without resorting to merely aping what was cool back then.
Take the video for “Tu Casa Nueva,” directed by Gerson Aguerri (El Guincho, The Vaccines, Times New Viking) and produced by the Canada label. Instead of adopting the clichés of clips from the Golden Age of MTV or playing charades with wigs and ridiculous outfits, El Último Vecino made a video that can stand on its own in this day and age. Most of it features the band’s singer (or someone who looks a lot like him) dancing among columns reminiscent of ancient ruins, while the sun rises slowly to start a new day.
In the last minute of the song, things shift abruptly. Here we find frenetic footage of the band playing live, cutting quickly from one shot to the other, with tons of movement and zoom ins and outs. These mostly black-and-white shots are intersected with footage of a model in various locations and states of dress (and undress). The results are hallucinatory, a feverish representation of the abstraction found in the song and its lyrics. Better yet, it proves that a band with a strong idea of where they stand sonically need only worry about making good art without concern for their references to other stuff.
El Último Vecino are gearing up to deliver a new single in November, which comes ahead of their forthcoming full-length record, available in early 2016.