Atemahawke

Album Review

Guadalajara based band Porter's sophomore release Atemahawke proves even darker and more bizarre than the band's debut record from two years earlier. Mysterious, yearning, and experimental are not words often used to describe Mexican rock music. While their countrymen play their hands close to their chests, Porter push the boundaries, incorporating noise, electronic effects and brilliantly intentional messiness left and right. Vocalist Juan Son's longing wails call to mind artists like Björk, both for desperation, strangeness, and vocal timbre. The band's use of slightly discordant strings and programming may remind listeners of Beck, the Pixies, and other studio mad scientists of rock history. The haunting, atmospheric quality of the music is at times enticing, at others unsettling. More upbeat tracks have a whimsically disco-esque quality similar to Modest Mouse, whom Porter have found themselves opening for in the past. While the world is not used to looking south of the border for sardonic Euro-rock, Porter may be on their way to changing all that. Atemahawke is an island of sonic irony in the Spanish-speaking rock world. ~ Evan C. Gutierrez, Rovi