OUTTAKES: Belafonte Sensacional – Soy Piedra

(The following blurb was supposed to be part of a list but got double booked for an earlier one in the same pub. I like it very much so I decided to publish it myself here)

You don’t need to know the backstory of the making of Soy Piedra to know it was a make-or-break album for the Mexico City band of merry miscreants; you can feel a special energy from the first guitar notes of “Segundo Acto de Destreza Juvenil” to the closing bass note that ends “K en el Abismo.” Track by track, Soy Piedra revealed a deathwish carried on the bowels of every poetic turn of phrase and musical idea bent to their will, yet hope was always present, which made the existential heartache at the core of these songs quite heavy. This record marked a mutation of Belafonte Sensacional from a Mexican rock urbano-loving folk punk outfit to something more ethereal, aggressive, sedated, and dynamic in a unique way. From motorik rhythms to gentle guitar strums to all out hardcore punk thrashing, Soy Piedra proved that raw emotion could be paired with sophisticated musical extremes, lyrical twists both beautiful and brutal, and an atmosphere of a dream that doesn’t end by waking up.