Culpables – Hábitos Nocturnos

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

From the South of the country of Chile, from the city of Chillán, enter these five dudes: musicians, poets, punks, and their band called Culpables, who just released their debut four-songs EP a month ago. Not everything is in the capital (8 hours from there), you know.

Each song on last year’s Hábitos Nocturnos, released by Friends & Family Records, Talcahuano, is under two minutes long. Simple and fast tracks to shake your body, to move, jump and dance, because we can’t stay still and hate to be bored. We have our bodies, flesh, meat and bones, and we should make good use of it, don’t you think?

Every note, every chord, every beat is simple, but precise. There’s energy present 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 who had studied with Steve Albini), making the sound crystal clear without losing its strength, kinda similar to the garage bands from the 60’s and the 70’s, with the vocals sitting in between the instruments without being too loud. The overall sound is great thanks to the nicely worked production.

While there’s hardly anything new or surprising in this debut release by this garage punk band, it wouldn’t be correct to say it is bad. There’s clear excitement in the performance. What we hear in the EP is what they are. To you, it might be just another band that’ll get lost in a overwhelming storm of sounds, information and hyperculture, but to them, is a piece of their lives. And it can be part of some other people’s lives too.