By Pablo Oliphant @pablooliphant
I met The Robertas About five years ago, curiously, it coincided with a personal adventure of trying to discover a truly different scene, one with which I could identify. Perhaps that year, 2019, takes on even greater significance now that the friends at Zonagirante.com have invited me to write about the new album from the band that emerged in Costa Rica approximately 13 years ago. and which at this point are undoubtedly a reference for the entire region.
Exactly one week ago, his new album was released, called Love Is The Answer (Love is the answer) and it's been playing on repeat in my head for the past few days. To rate a work would truly be an act of total injustice to the art created, which contains countless stories behind it, but recommending that you listen to this wonderful album is something I can definitely do. Give it play The first song, which also gives the album its name, is a delight from the very first chord. This, their fourth LP, in my humble opinion, is perhaps their most powerful album in terms of the songs that make it up.
Where the influences are made explicit and psychedelia is perhaps the most accurate word to understand the genesis and the final result of Love Is The Answer. This album explores psychedelia as a musical journey far more complex and elusive than the mere labels the industry constantly imposes. And this journey, imprinted on each of the nine songs that make up the album's tracklist, will lead us to discover the path Las Robertas has traveled over the years. Because in each song you vibrate with the feeling of traveling alongside them to different corners of the world, and where, yes, those labels become evident. Where songs full of "hammer blows" (as they say in Spain) shines the shoegaze from iconic European locations or where the percussion imbues the album with a desert atmosphere in the best stoner style of incredible places like California (an inevitable connection with the Costa Rican band) and where the distortion not only perfectly connects both feelings but also immerses us in a journey, a journey through time with the best of alternative rock from past decades.
In short, listening to this beautiful album by Las Robertas is a truly amazing experience, a journey through the best of their catalog, discovering their influences, to see the path traveled, the experience and the growth of a handful of artists who may be facing their most solid work. As the band explains, lyrically Love Is The Answer talks about «"Love for the universe, individual freedom, and hope at a time when the world seems to be getting closer and closer to being consumed by chaos."» . Anyway, «"This is what pain sounds like."...
If I could recommend a song, that would be it. Third Door. Six and a half minutes that summarize all these lines like no other. and where the journey of Las Robertas finds its fullest expression.
