WL//WH Review PRINCIPE VALIENTE
Photo by @jacob_frossen
Yes indeed, ‘Barricades’ is the stellar new full-length album by Swedish post-punks Principe Valiente via Metropolis Records. The album was officially released yesterday, March 18, and it follows their critically acclaimed previous LP ‘Oceans’ back in 2017. This new record is still pointing to a band that is literally drowning in talent, in creating impressive music with monumental tracks and albums that will be remembered for a long time. On ‘Barricades’ LP, the songs have grown out of melodies and chords rather than guitar riffs. Of course, the guitar is there in the foreground already, but the orchestration that surrounds it is absolutely monumental with amazing and very beautiful melodies all over through some dramatic soundscapes and with the voice of the singer leading the way to great emotions.
Principe Valiente comprises Fernando Honorato (Vocals, Electric Bass, Keyboards, & Piano), Jimmy Ottosson (Guitars & pads, and programming), Rebecka Johansson (Keyboards), and Joakim Janthe (Drums); sounding like a very strong team that creates seemingly easily and comfortably some really amazing musings, last December they let out the first single with an official video too for ‘Porcelain’. Slowcore,-“shoegazy”, a new wave ballad that is unique in the album. Watch it and I’ll tell you more afterwards.
Without exaggeration, the entire new album is filled with approx 10 new leading tracks and singles. It is amazing how the record starts straight into the deep with new wave passion and the post-punk energy with the title song ‘Barricades’. I don’t really like reviewing new albums track-by-track because I believe is irrelevant and somehow “bad manners” like dictating my point of view to the reader. I’ve done this type of album presentation very few times, and there was always a serious reason for the artist. So, I will give you only my “private passions” in this album and I will let you get completely lost in it alone, to discover it for yourself and to choose your own “poisons”. ‘I Am You’ because it is groovy dark(wave) and so addictive to dance to it, again and again, it is a “veiled” deathrock tune. ‘Tears In Different Colors’ is an absolutely glorious new wave song (dot-dash). ‘Never Change’ because it is an excellent example of the new route, post-punk clearly flirting with shoegaze, the result is striking. ‘The Beating Of Your Heart’…romantic rock music with a great troubadour. ‘This Buried Love’ is the closing track of the album and a song of unforgettable post-punk aesthetics, it reminded me long past “dark glories”.
You will experience a band so skilled, so much on target, with a great, huge sound that doesn’t muffle the players as they don’t desperately-need-the-effects/ the effects need these players who weave and blow their music as if they were easy on a long and incredibly wonderful adventure; the new stellar ‘Barricades’ LP by Swedish act Principe Valiente!!!
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Written by Loud Cities’ Mike
