Corazón

By Margaret Reges
Sometimes, either in an effort to "get serious" or to play things safe, a band's second album can be just plain boring -- this is definitely not the case with Corazón's sophomore effort, Nuevo Futuro. From Luis Calvo's wonderfully bizarre album design -- which features a dramatic, black-as-the-depths-of-space gatefold sleeve and a cover photo of Nando and Carlos standing on a cliff clad in white robes (or togas?) -- to the kooky, space-tastic synthesizer effects that open up the first track, Nuevo Futuro announces itself as an album that will be anything but dull. Similar to their first album, Nuevo Futuro draws from folk revival, bubblegum, and psych pop acts of the '60s and '70s -- bands like Simon & Garfunkel, the New Seekers, and Yellow Balloon. The difference here is that they've embellished their sound to make it way more kitsch. There are times when this approach stops being believable and becomes just plain silly. "Vestir Santos" is just bit too kooky -- and maybe it's just because the frothy 1990s-style synthesized effects don't quite fit in with the '60s- and '70s-inspired kitsch that appears throughout the rest of the album. A couple stumbles aside, Corazón really do manage to pull off a whole lot of kookiness without devolving into comedy rock. The spooky synths on "La Riena de la Pista" manage to sound fun as opposed to, say, ridiculous, and the dramatic crescendo (punctuated by spacy whooshes and angelic sha-na-na-na-nas) on "Nunca Olvidarte" feels absolutely earned. Nuevo Futuro is at its best on "Amanda Conoce a Amancio" -- it's so self-serious, so frothily dramatic, so irresistibly hooky that it's kind of brilliant. On Nuevo Futuro, Corazón are unapologetically weird in the way Harpers Bizarre were weird, and it results in some of their best work.