Papa Topo is back with their long-awaited second album, and by far their most ambitious and complex work to date. Despite staying true to their exaggerated, melodic, catchy pop, the group is releasing an existentialist album, full of loneliness, unease, and a rage that comes from contemporary society.
Adrià Arbona has spent the last three years writing and arranging and producing this collection of songs, and he did it with passion and attention to detail. He decided that, considering what is takes to produce an album, he shouldn't be shy about it. If art is capable of transmitting messages, you need to use that platform to talk about what you're really feeling, take a stand and leave the pleasantries behind. So without letting go of the more fantastical qualities that have always characterized Papa Topo, the political and social activist qualities have become more prominent.
The album title is a quote from one of Joseph Haydn's annotations of his piece "The Seven Last Words of Christ", which was commissioned to be played in the Oratorio de la Santa Cueva church in Cadiz. The movement called "The Earthquake", describes in sound how the earth shook and trembled after Christ's passing, an image that represents this apocalyptic, end-of-days theme so well that it runs through a large part of PAPA TOPO's new album. "Presto y con Toda la Fuerza" is an album made to shout with rage against a consumerist society, and to hit our oppressors hard with music, with all of the strength and force possible. And in terms of sound, it is full of thunderous and dizzying tempos.
Musically, the album stands out for the profusion of orchestral arrangements and omnipresence of electronic music. Since the release of 'Ópalo Negro' in 2016, Adrià has finished studying composition at the Taller de Músics in Barcelona, where he acquired the technical knowledge to write the elegant and complex string and wind arrangements that he had been dreaming of since Papa Topo first started. He also started getting into nightclub electro music, expanding the band's soundscape and creating a personalized ambiance where different influences like classic impressionism, dance music, pop, punk, folklore, cuplé, and atonality all coexist. In between songs, there are interludes with names of baroque dances that give a sense of unity and continuity to the collection of songs and gives the album an air of an old instrumental suite.
TRACK LISTING
1. Fanfarria
2. Frágil
3. Dime Mentiras
4. Ven A Mis Brazos
5. Me Voy A Desenamorar De Ti (Feat. Juliana Gattas)
6. Como El Mar
7. Zarabanda
8. Nunca Digo No
9. Ricercare
10. Dinero Rosa
11. Pavana
12. Crist De La Sang
13. Jácara
14. Emasculación, La Solución
15. Cadencia
