After severing ties with EMI, hugely popular Spanish duo
Amaral surprised their audience with their hardest-sounding work to date on
Hacia Lo Salvaje, the first release for their own label. This ostensible electric guitar rock album attempts to eschew the band's somewhat misguided reputation as a regular dispenser of cute pop tunes by offering a concise collection of 12 bittersweet songs about mixed feelings, dreams of escape, tales of outcasts, and nostalgia for innocence lost, sung with newfound urgency by Eva Amaral -- see for instance the lead single title track. While it does not contain the obvious hits of previous
Amaral releases, fans may actually find
Hacia Lo Salvaje to be a more consistent album, one whose appeal grows rather than diminishes with repeated listening. ~ Mariano Prunes