album review: 'brave faces everyone' by spanish love songs

I think it can get overlooked sometimes that emo comes from punk.

And before you protest, I mean more thematically in its focus than in the sound outright. During its expansion throughout the 90s, in comparison with more hard-edged political touchpoints that the larger music industry would dilute out of the genre, emo’s more introspective framing made its adaptation for the mainstream an easier sell, which is why in the pop rock explosion of the 2000s it was much more easily commodified and trivialized. And yet with the newest wave coming out of the 2010s it hasn’t quite happened, not achieved the crossover even as trap and emo rap appropriate signifiers and even chord structures, and I’ve been fascinated as to why. And sure, some of it is linked to ‘rock is dead’ media narratives piared with how outside of Warp Tour punk and emo at their most raw never had easy radio crossover, but I’d argue there’s a subtextual element as well: simply put, specifically in the rise of midwestern emo there was a heaviness and maturity to the more thoughtful songwriting that didn’t just wallow in easy relationship drama, part of which came from established acts hitting middle age but for the newer generation there seems to be a greater societal awareness of both mental health and broader systemic decay. Emo of previous decades had angst but mostly grounded it internally amidst waves of poetry - in the 2010s there still was that angst, but there was less of a flowery wallow, and a blunter sense of realism that demanded a greater scope. And this awareness was present among the best acts in and adjacent to the genre: Sorority Noise, The Wonder Years, PUP, you name them.

And into that scene we have to include Spanish Love Songs, a California-based act that I’d seen drifting on the edges of the conversations for those in the know with a solid mid-2010s debut, but really smashed into the scene proper in 2018 with Schmaltz, with broad improvements in more diverse song-structures, more expansive grooves, and their absolute powerhouse of a frontman in Dylan Slocum, who had the trembling but powerfully emotive roar of a bruiser - think Dan Cambell of The Wonder Years but deeper and a little more unstable. And the writing… take the unflinching self-aware honesty of Max Bemis updated to the modern era and barrelling into the pits of depression, addiction, and a steadily expanding scope to look beyond himself, and you had an act on the rise in the best way possible… but I’ll admit after the excellent Schmaltz I wasn’t sure how much further the band would go, reportedly integrating more synth textures which can be very hit-and-miss in emo. But hell, I could use a good emotional gutpunch, so what did we get on Brave Faces Everyone?

…folks, I made a statement on Twitter that I was planning to include this album in On The Pulse because it might just be the best way to get this all the exposure it deserves, especially when you realize that what it does so right might not demand a lot of words to describe. Then I got another four or five listens in and I realized I had a larger problem: I couldn’t find the flaws on this project, because whenever I got close, Spanish Love Songs drives another semi-trailer into the gut. This is an album that hits the same raw emotional territory as a Ruston Kelly or Lydia Loveless or Deaf Havana or Jetty Bones album and then keeps going, but with the scope to look outside itself and cut to the core of what could be a generational statement. I went in expecting a fucking great emo album… what I found was a goddamn masterpiece.

And I feel I have to start with that sense of thematic scope, because on the surface it seems simple: clenching your fists, gritting your teeth, and clawing together some optimism to face the world; it’s an emo album with ultimately a positive message, I’m already getting onboard. But Spanish Love Songs is not going to make it that easy, so he’s going to throw the weight of everything and the kitchen sink into highlighting the impossible reality of our generation really finding that. Congratulations for trying this thing called happiness for a while, you’re now dealing with omnipresent depression, exhausted burnout, and a larger society that’ll crap on you for expressing and exploring it; or hell, just not even listen. Your friends and family are addicted to painkillers, the barroom has become banal, nobody gives a shit about your passing hobby in a band, and you don’t have the money to support any of this anyway. Yeah, if you’re looking for where Spanish Love Songs barrels into punk territory when it comes to emo, it’s in the blunt observations of poverty that a lot of emo in the past - especially the commercially viable stuff - didn’t dare touch, because middle-class kids writing sad poetry was an easier sell than getting priced out of apartments, the humiliation of dependence on family who are already overextended and deluding themselves that they’ll be okay, and the realization it’s a systemic societal issue for your generation that’s not getting better. You’re just good enough of a person to hate yourself for not being a better person, you’re aware of the exploitation inherent in the broken system in which you have to live, every bad decision you and your friends make only compound everyone’s misery, and when the world’s only getting worse, having a vestige of integrity costs even more.

And yet even in the face of all of that, everything that has crushed so many people into the ground to stamp on the face forever, be it gentrification to police brutality to omnipresent debt to the sad reality that it doesn’t seem like any of it is going to get better, this is still an album that wipes its bloody nose and blackened eyes to get up and steel yourself for more. There’s a raw, headstrong tenacity to Dylan Slocum’s delivery both soft-spoken and howling where you can tell he’s trying to convince himself of optimism and a better world and living for other people, and that underlying desperate positivity means that there’s no scapegoating either, even if on songs like ‘Routine Pain’ it’d be so easy to do so and find release. People are only trying to live in bad systems, where for as much as this album rages against prior generations’ intentional ignorance and your family’s guilt-tripping when they aren’t even trying to hear an explanation like on ‘Generation Loss’, the very next song is ‘Kick’, where our frontman sees his father shooting heroin and then talking about Jesus driving the kids home from Sunday school, where the drug trade becomes generational and he meets a friend he knows is using… and he doesn’t have the guts to give his friend the ten grand he doesn’t have for rehab, even though an OD is likely in the cards. Morality seems to change when poverty enters the picture, especially when on a song like ‘Losers’ where he can’t afford the doctor for himself, where it might be cheaper to just die, where your family never really recovered from the financial crash in ‘08 and they refuse to admit it to themselves - to quote ‘Losers Pt. 2’, the cost of living means it costs to stay alive', and what’s really going to happen when the parents who have bailed them out die themselves, showing a consistent human compassion… fuck, let’s live for each other and not be the last one’s standing. Sandwiched in between the two ‘Losers’ songs is ‘Optimism (As A Radical Life Choice)’ - the gallows humour is pretty persistent here - where in a world where everyone is dying on the outside, he’s done dying on the inside, and he’ll wear you out waiting for him to implode. And when you consider an earlier song on this project is ‘Self-Destruction (As A Sensible Career Choice)’ where all his self-doubt bulldozes all his hopes in the face of missing bank payments, his dreams are like quick-drying cement sucking him down, and he probably needs about thirty goddamn miracles to pull this out, pulling out some vestige of hope is genuinely powerful.

And what becomes so stark about this album is that it’s not just didactic sloganeering or abstract thoughts, which is where the greatest strengths of emo shine through in fleshing out that detail and vulnerability. He’s sick of apologizing for emotional rawness especially when those brutal systems seek to grind them down into hopelessness in a world short on empathy, where his poor friend’s self-destruction won’t be eulogized and nobody listening leads to an awkward memorial, and songs like ‘Kick’ and the fractured hospital scene post mass shooting in ‘Dolores’ have the sort of heartbreaking detail that ring painfully true - because that’s still a thing too in this world where they’re still praying for you, isn’t that good enough? Another example of getting talked at and never listened to, where you’ll wake up and not feel better and wonder why you’re still surprised about it… but you know the right answer isn’t just saying ‘fuck it’, even if it’s the exhausted, easy solution. Because you don’t have to fix everything at once, and it’s not worth being conditioned to be broken, so let’s goddamn live for each other and go. And if that’s not an aspirational focus that can strike some sort of emotional or intellectual chord for our generation or even those before and after… tell me, what’s it like to have all the privilege and no problems?

So, stellar writing, fantastic thematic depth and detail, a heartwrenching performance that cuts true, what could go wrong here? Well, this is where I would come in here and say that it’s doing all this with a pretty ‘by-the-numbers’ emo palette: noisy pop-punk leaning grooves with huge anthemic hooks, sharp drumwork, synth primarily used as accent texture, but nothing that on its surface seems revolutionary… but this is a project where not only is it mixed to amplify that shaky, desperate instability, but also add a diversity of groove and melodic interplay that will throw you offguard in the best way possible like on ‘Beach Front Property’ while preserving dynamics and nailing the loud-soft moments that know when to get spare to ratchet up the crescendos. And I’m giving a ton of credit to Gabe Mayeshiro on bass here, where not only is he actively contributing interweaving harmonies more than you’d expect, but he’s bringing a sinuous, frenetic tension in the foundation that only ramps up the emotional surge when this album swings for the fences in its anthemic moments. And when the melodies are as crisp and bright as they are on the guitars and Ruben Duarte’s drumwork is explosive but just ever-so-slightly offkilter, especially when he gets fast as hell, you realize that once again Spanish Love Songs is nailing that balance between organic rawness and technical refinement that had only been augmented on Schmaltz. And even those little keyboard moments work, from the synth-touches on the outro of ‘Routine Pain’ to the hint of organ behind ‘Self-Destruction (As A Sensible Career Choice)’ to the piano slipping between the lines on ‘Beach Front Property’ and ‘Losers’, to how so much drops back to emphasize the painful loneliness of the third verse. And sure, these are expected guitar tones for emo and pop punk, but not only does that enhance the universality of the themes and tones across the album, when the anthemic moments hit like how ‘Generation Loss’ crashes into its hook off the blur of cymbals and chugging bassy riffs, or how ‘Kick’ brings in brighter melodic touches against its choppy structure, or the huge breakdown after the bridge on ‘Losers’ that’s later mirrored in bassier progressions and a hook just as huge on ‘Pt. 2’, or how the acoustics and crushing bass let ‘Optimism (As A Radical Life Choice)’ explode into even rougher tones or how the title track is a testament to every choppy build-up to nail a killer hook. And every moment I’m left thinking that this album might one-dimensional in its approach or tone, you get cuts like ‘Dolores’ that rip everything back to a simmering slow burn ballad, or every moment the band knows to slow it down and breathe for just a moment, or a switch up into tones that are even more punishing but still contain real melody!

And in the end… folks, by the time I got a solid eight to ten listens in I was looking for flaws, I was trying to drill into everything that could be better or different. Some critics have claimed the band is overly earnest especially with Slocum’s delivery being an acquired taste, but that’s the same criticism thrown at Sage Francis and plenty of emo acts and that’s never phased me in the slightest, especially when they don’t lean on sentimentality. The only other criticism for which I can see holding water is that the album can be emotionally exhausting and draining hitting so many of the same heavy power chords, that maybe it doesn’t show enough diversity… until you pay attention to how often the guitar and bass tones change up to deliver hook after hook of walloping power, and each song has enough unique detail in its content and melodic composition to feel unique. I will also add that it’s an emotionally draining listen - art this raw and direct and targeted so expertly often is - but even that mirrors the hard confrontation with reality that is art that can speak this powerfully with such interwoven cohesion and thematic power. In other words… look, I had expectations when it came to Dave Cobb and Nick Cave and Dessa, and I didn’t with this. But Spanish Love Songs measured up - first 10 of the 2020s, people, emo and pop punk can resonate in that territory and they don’t get better than this. And for as much as I thought I wouldn’t have enough for a full review… I can only marvel at the potential from a band with such a line of hope, and they’ve earned all of your attention. Prepare to have your hearts ripped asunder, this is a masterpiece worth hearing.