“Let’s start all over again,” shouts A. Pedro Ribeiro, opening Sereias’ new album with the screech of an abrasive guitar over a persistent rhythm and keyboard incursions that recall 1970s jazz-rock. This is the leitmotif of the album—a fresh start where the free rock of Sereias appears in all its splendour, a continuous progression of post-rock and kraut, tense, obsessive, relentless, playing with textures and winking at free jazz, contemporary music, and even some tribalism. From this sonic cauldron emerges A. Pedro Ribeiro’s psychotic voice—sometimes shouted, sometimes murmured, sometimes declaimed, sometimes enraged, sometimes depressive—alongside his raw poetry, café-poet-style, lashing out at the world or lamenting existential woes.

But unlike their debut, O País A Arder, here there are fewer striking slogans like “I want a prime minister for breakfast” or “TV whores,” and a greater sense of despair in the face of the world. The musical atmospheres gain unexpected prominence and space, as in “Las Cadenas,” where electronically manipulated voices craft strict sonic narratives, and recited litanies are repeated again and again, emphasizing the sense of loss and the melancholy, anguished tone that permeates the record. “She comes back, always comes back, the depression,” A. Pedro Ribeiro repeats to exhaustion, surrendering to the fado of social maladaptation and emotional deprivation that drags him “to the bottom of the glass, to the bottom of the abyss” amidst ragged melodies.

Apocalyptic visions or warnings that “things will explode,” even when supported by rhythmic crescendos of explosive patterns, are of no avail—the fate is set: “to return, always return.” And how sweet this return is! At a time when Portuguese music mostly drifts through a modernised national-song style disguised as pop, it is a blessing to hear Sereias and their disruptive chimera take shape in music, where creation is a vital and urgent impulse. Long may they thrive!"

Adolfo Luxúria Canibal