No More Lies – In The Shade Of Expectation LP (Vinyl)

No More Lies – In The Shade Of Expectation CD

The path of the pioneers is a path full of surprises, trees in the middle of the pass, leopards lurking in the bushes and witches offering magic potions. No More Lies were the first to do a few things. Giving hosts against the elements, not accepting no for an answer, they -with the confidence of the unconscious- opened the path through which many would come later. There are the Mayflower settlers, the British explorer Shackleton and then they would come. A group capable of putting a small town on the Catalan coast -Sant Feliu de Guixols- on the map of the independent European scene, with the help of a small but bustling community of brave people like them -LAtzavara-. When, more than ten years ago, many groups did not go out to play beyond the limits of their province, they went with their van to Slovenia and the Czech Republic. When they came back they explained how it had gone and I looked at them as if they were Captain Ahab. Then they would go even further (like when they recorded a record in Chicago). Nobody before them -or after, what the hell- was able to unite the post-hardcore made in Washington DC (Jawbox in very large letters) and unite it with the celebratory component of some Van Halen. Santi García (vocals, guitars), Màxim Triviños (bass, spiritual grandson of Black Flag's Chuck Dukowski) and Roger Ortega (drums) are three guys who are much more musically read than they seem. The most bespectacled will compare them to unknown bands like Rye Coalition or Murder City Devils, but in reality they were always an irresistible mix of melody and energy, Damned and Fugazi. One can see flashes of the most riotous arena rock (from Ted Nugent to Led Zeppelin), flashes of math rock (Chavez, Shiner) that perfectly illustrate the degree of understanding that the three members of the group have developed by now, bursts of post hardcore more confrontational (Shellac, Jesus Lizard)… They control the riff, put a collar and a muzzle on it, keep it tense and then release it along with a killer chorus, urgent and luminous. The result is always the same: ass kicked severely. Max, Santi and Roger are affable and easygoing people off stage -some of them are respectable family men-, but when they plug in their amps the veins in their necks swell and their glasses pop out. They are like a typhoon and an earthquake at the same time.