Chicano Batman: love songs for the invisible people
Invisible People is the new album from Chicano Batman, the indie rock band from Los Angeles.
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"Chicano Batman is essentially a way of championing the underdog," Bardo Martinez told Billboard in 2015, while they toured with Jack White and grappled with the good and bad comments about how was it possible for a Latin band to open every night for him.
Now, five years later, their new album adheres to that idea with lyrics that speak of the discrimination and pain of the refugee, without drama, without any complex, and others about the longing for an impossible love, this time with all the sugar, fantasy and tears of clothing that you may want in the lyrics.
Throughout the album, a funky guitar is accompanied by the dirty, slightly distorted sound of the synthesizers, a simple and deep bass and a dry-sounding drum kit, almost without any highlights, which balances out the intense emotions of the lyrics very well.
Invisible People has 12 songs and 6 of those are variations on desire, fantasy, pain and love.
In Color my life, Blank Slate, I know it, Pink Elephant, Wounds and Bella, the members of Chicano Batman go from wondering if the object of desire is real or just a dream, to confess face to face the desire to fall in love without fear, they doubt whether to relapse into a past relationship, they talk about the pink elephant in the room, they sing the desire for a woman who dances in the morning and they show us the wound through which their soul comes out.
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There is not a day that goes by
That I don't think of you
You're the center of the firmament
The essence of all permanence
You make me shake in my sleep
I wish I could always keep you
The achievement of these songs is that the emotional limit to which the lyrics go is compensated by the music and that's why they don't become cloying.
Invisible People, Manuel's Song, Polymetronic Harmony, The Way and The Prophet speak of another kind of pain: the pain that comes from structural violence, from having to seek refuge in another country because of drug trafficking, from selling one's soul to money.
Perhaps Invisible People, the song that gives its name to the album, is the one that speaks to us most directly at this historic moment: between the pandemic, the economic recession, the galloping racial discrimination and the wave of anti-racist protests that we are seeing.
It's a song that the way to do it justice is simply to sit calmly, in silence, and listen.
Invisible people
We're tired of living in the dark
Everyone is trying to tear us apart
All we wanna do is heal now
Smoke a spliff so I can feel now, yeahInvisible people
The truth is we're all the same
The concept of race was implanted inside your brain
It's time to start all over
You best believe we're taking overSpinnin' the world around you
Invisible people
The truth is we take the blame
Fuck the system it created so much pain
It's time to start all over
You best believe we're taking overSpinnin' the world around you
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