Contradicting ourselves twice in a row, here is the new single from a familiar face around here, the Minneapolis-based Dark Wave group Joao, led by American–Peruvian musician & composer Mauricio Málaga Fuenzalida on guitar and vocals, along with Luis Miguel Peña Maceda on bass and backing vocals.
The 2-tracker “Hands Over Your Naked Body / Killing The Unborn”, with a cover vaguely reminiscent of Siouxsie And The Banshees’ “Join Hands”, delivers the band’s intense and densely atmospheric, both dreamlike and nocturnal, take on the Post-punk and New Wave from the ’80s.
Pensive lyrics reflect on the array of emotions felt during the early stages of a romance, whilst brooding, at the end, in a sea of melancholy and regret.
Driven by a relentless slamming drum machine laced with rattling murky basslines, “Hands Over Your Naked Body” resonates with a vibrant heartfelt poignancy, ceaselessly spiked by the sparkling flickering of echoing guitar chimes, rich with effects and reflective melancholy, swept by sparse icy bright dramatic synth washes, to reverberate the tormented passion of restless musings on the fragility of a relationship, drawing angst-ridden croons of longing from an urgent well of bittersweet memories.
Keep up with Joao: