Culpables – Hábitos Nocturnos

It’s hard to keep track of all the bands that come and go every month, every year. You never know if they’ll be there for an EP, maybe an album, or if they’ll go on to have a big and rich career. That’s why we have to keep our eyes and ears open and dig deep into the scene. By researching, sharing and connecting, we might find those songs that mean so much to us, or that just make us think that not everything in our lives is so bad. Maybe we’ll connect with people who feel like us, with similar desires, just like I felt when I started writing here. There’s always people out there ready to make some noise, and we might as well help spread those distorted waves around the globe.

From the south of Chile, from the city of Chillán, come these five guys: musicians, poets, punks and their band called Culpables, who just released their debut four-song EP a month ago. Not everything is in the capital (8 hours away), you know.

Each song on last year’s Hábitos Nocturnos, released by Friends & Family Records, Talcahuano, is under two minutes long. Easy and fast ways to shake your body, move, jump and dance, because we can’t stand still and we hate being bored. We have our bodies, flesh, meat and bones, and we should use them well, don’t you think?

Every note, every chord, every beat is simple but precise. There’s energy in the pristine guitars and the overdriven sound, in the soft echo of the voice and the smooth structures of the songs.

The album was mixed and mastered by Milo Gomberoff, from the great band Familea Miranda (and a former student of Steve Albini), who makes the sound crystal clear without losing its power, similar to the garage bands of the ’60s and ’70s, with the vocals sitting between the instruments without being too loud. The overall sound is great thanks to the well done production.

Although there is nothing new or surprising on this debut release of this garage punk band, it wouldn’t be right to say that it’s bad. There’s a lot of excitement in the performance. What we hear on this EP is who they are. To you it might be just another band lost in an overwhelming storm of sound, information and hyperculture, but to them it’s a part of their life. And it can be a part of other people’s lives, too.