Call Reanimadores a garage-punk band, and you wouldn’t exactly be wrong — but you’d be missing one of their major sonic loves. On the Puerto Rican quartet’s forthcoming debut LP Me Das Asco, it’s plain to hear: Power-pop is a big influence.
Their whole repertoire is glazed with the genre’s penchant for earworm melodies juxtaposed with big riffs; last year’s eponymous cassette released jointly by Burger and Weiner Records told us as much. In case you had any doubts about whether Reanimadores are into The Quick, The Nerves, Cheap Trick, and the like, though, the three additional tracks we get with this full-length collection will surely drive the point home.
One of those new jams is “H para H.P.” Its title is an inside joke stemming from exactly the slang you’re thinking of, though lyrically it’s more about inner disenchantment on La Isla de Encanto than outward hate for others. Singer-guitarist Ahmed Albizu says he penned it while playing in Jenny Fatale y Los Degolladores, a now-defunct punk group that had its local heyday about a decade ago.
“I always kind of felt proud of that lick and the music,” Albizu says. “[I] thought it was good power pop, so I didn’t want to discard it, so we used it up for Reanimadores.”
Me Das Asco is out July 8 on vinyl thanks to a triple co-venture by local mainstay ChaCho Records, upstart label Warevel Socio (spearheaded by Radames Juni Figueroa), and El Local, a staple underground spot in Santurce.
Editor’s note: On July 8, Reanimadores will play a record release party with Los Vigilantes, La Santa Ska, and Eretica at San Juan’s Club 77, a venue owned by the author of this piece.
