Don Caballero
Punkgasm

Reducing the real and transcendent to equations and exemplary mechanisms is like reading a book about a painting. On the other hand, demonstrating the narrowness of fields and views of the sciences in an objective way (an absolute oxymoron, in short) is like avoiding the corners of your bedroom nightstand in the dark. Both factions are clamorously banging their heads against one another in search of a compromise that won't be possible to achieve. Because talking about a sunrise with formulas that explain its essence by referring only to the tree itself will never "portray" that sunrise.  However, there are cases in music where form and content coincide in a relationship of interdependence. This form in Don Caballero was at first an impetuous and violent entanglement in "stoner deserts" of monsters armed with protractors ("For Respect" and "Second"), then a subtle yet frenetic description of the facets of reality (Don Caballero 3, "What Burns Never Returns"). But never speak of abstraction, because such intricate textures are filled with the matter that constitutes reality; careful listening reveals hollows among the angles, and how feelings emerge from the geometric lines interwoven in music. It's using mathematics to spit in the face of precise theories that want equidistant lines, indivisible points, and the total absence of chaos: it is, in fact, the admission of the moist imperfection on which we base our (happy and not so happy) existence. The difference between avant-garde and reaction here lies entirely in the intentions of the composer, much more than in influences and illustrious inspirations.

And that's why I don't find myself in these notes. Sinusoidal forms devoid of meaning, involuntary abstraction that no longer communicates, references to musical aesthetic canons that are taken as they are, without any reworking. The girl you see after years and discover defeated and shaped according to mechanisms imposed by "others." "Loudest Shop Vac In The World" starts, and immediately the last surviving member of the original Don Caballero, the funambulist Damon Che Fitzgerald, doesn't fail to show off; but it's essentially almost ten minutes that pass (more or less) without leaving a trace, and a monstrous drummer who plays monstrously conventional. By the second track, the déjà vu is nauseating, the usual guitars chasing and intertwining, just as they sounded 13 years ago, with only the performers changing. Performers, moreover, seem to be content with the meager status of epigones. The album runs too much of a risk of being a parody of the (alas distant) past, and here the music takes on vainly threatening poses, darkening among granitic riffs and fuzz aplenty ("Bulk Eye") and math-infused hardcore reinterpretations, but with the occasional addition of vocals. "Lord Krepelka" touches the peaks of aggressiveness on the album, (and here Damon Che's patterns are truly admirable) but you always have the impression of the bored child in the restaurant who seeks to draw attention. "Why The Couch Is Always Wet" brings back the beloved choruses of Battles (destination of former Don guitarist Ian Williams) in an adult and entirely charm-free manner, and in closing, the title track brings to mind Trans Am's "Ordinary people" echoing Minutemen, but without inducing the expected punkgasm.

The rest are (many) short tracks ranging from the most hackneyed post-rock to insignificant episodes now noise, now hardcore, now math, now all together. I don’t deny that the listening experience is still pleasant and that more inspired moments are not lacking, but everything, from the very '90s production to an overly manneristic approach, lacks personality and ambition. If you are a fan of Don Caballero without particular expectations or are entirely unfamiliar with them, you can add stars as you wish, but for the rest, this "Punkgasm" is an album that tastes of cork even in its best moments.