A Slight Delay

A couple of months ago in this space, I reviewed Gustavo Cerati’s “Deja Vu” as a teaser of sorts to his new album, Fuerza Natural. At the time, I included the disclaimer that it’s pretty difficult to extrapolate the sound of an entire album on the basis of one track, and speculated that this album, like its predecessor Ahi Vamos, was likely to be a more straightforward rock effort. I turned out to be more right on the first point than the second since, as so often happens with Cerati, this disc is anything but straightforward.

A lot of the usual influences are here, including Charly Garcia, Luis Alberto Spinetta, and the ever-present shade of Cerati’s former band, Soda Stereo. There are also surprises here in the echoes of George Harrison and Todd Rundgren. There’s a stopover (”Magia”) in the same ZIP code previously occupied by ELO, and a riff on “Amor Sin Rodeos” that would do a certain Mr. Petty* proud.

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It’s been a long, strange trip for Gustavo Cerati. The guitarist and vocalist, who turned fifty yesterday, started out as the front man for the ridiculously popular¹ Argentine band Soda Stereo. In 1993, while Soda Stereo was still active, he released his first solo effort, Amor Amarillo, which contained elements that would be blended–in various proportions–ever since; cryptic lyrics², gentle ambience, hot shit guitar playing, and radio-friendly songcraft played off against a slightly skewed sonic and melodic sensibility.

In 1999, scarcely two years after Soda Stereo broke up, Cerati released Bocanada, which sounded like a continuation of the more ambient bits of Soda’s last studio disc, Sueño Stereo. As albums go, it’s a staid, downtempo affair that manages to sound like the better bits of the Cure in places (only Cerati is a better vocalist and guitarist than Robert Smith, and doesn’t have Smith’s dry white whine). When it was followed, a few years later, by Siempre es Hoy, some fans (present company included) enjoyed the techno shadings and electronic squiggles while others wondered where in the hell the guitar had gone, and whether Cerati had lost the plot.³

And then, with Ahi Vamos, Cerati found the guitar, and the plot, again. Tracks like “Dios nos Libre” and “Bomba de Tiempo” were mostly-unadulterated straightforward rock, suggesting that the musician had come to a kind of uneasy peace with the Soda Stereo days, and marking a return to form. Which brings us–in typically roundabout fashion–to the upcoming Fuerza Natural. (more…)