Biznaga

Biznaga

Gran Pantalla

Slovenly

***Madrid's BIZNAGA are back with their 3rd long player, but what the band itself considers in a way to be their first album, in that they've broken from the way they normally put together a record (as a collection of songs that work independently from one another). For Gran Pantalla, they've written an album knowing that in 2k20, our every move & inquiry will continue to be recorded for eventual (or perhaps immediate) observation by someone on the other side of a Big Screen, after being processed by The Algorithm. Whatever we search for will later find us. The screen has captured us—so sit back, relax, and enjoy it. Gran Pantalla is twelve tracks recorded & mixed by RAUL PEREZ in Sevilla, mastered in Berlin by TIM WARREN (Crypt Records). Performing entirely in Castellano (with heavily deep lyrics), and even working some flamenco handclaps into the mix, Biznaga is Spanish as fuck. If Joe Strummmer were actually from Granada, The Clash would have sounded something like this.

Biznaga

Sentido Del Espectaculo

Slovenly

***"One of Spain's greatest rock and roll bands, Ilegales, once said, 'We are everything you say we are, and even worse.' BIZNAGA might share this motto if it weren’t for the fact that they don’t give a shit about rock and roll. They wanted me to dedicate few words to their 'Sense of Spectacle,' so maybe you’re expecting to read a long list of over-the-top metaphors and grandiose yet undeserved adjectives to describe their songs. That’s not gonna happen. I’m not going to do anything even remotely similar—they wouldn’t want that. I’m not going to say that this is an album created through balls and ingenuity, an arrogant and tender artifact, full of urgent melodies, hymns about daily struggles and the same nervous verbosity as many UK-based bands from past decades (The Clash, Buzzcocks, Mekons, Zounds, Stiff Little Fingers, Television Personalities), or that they know how to squander with taste and impertinence the inheritance of some local heroes (Parálisis Permanente, Eskorbuto, Ilegales) or that even when they succumb to that fabled fatigue and their flamenco style comes out, they make it work. I won’t say that you should pay attention to the lyrics of these songs that are full of streets and nights, because, as in all the songs they’ve written up to this point, they sing about the classic problem of fear, disgust, boredom, and the lack of communication in current times, and they talk about these issues in a way nobody else is doing. I won’t say any...