CSS - La Liberación

Back in the warm neon glow of 2006, we got our first proper induction to Brazilian dance-pop merchants CSS, with the suggestive single ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’. It was sexier than the Rio carnival itself and arrived just in time for them to be lumped in with that ol’ New Rave craze. If you don’t remember it, be grateful.

Cut to 2011. New Rave is as out-dated as VHS and CSS are back from their three year break, into a widely different musical landscape. ‘La Liberación’, very roughly translated as the liberation, saw them decamp to São Paulo and experiment with their somewhat signature style. While it certainly sounds as if it was more fun to record, it’s certainly nowhere near as aggressive as 2008’s Donkey; ‘La Liberación’ has the odd tendency of being unengaging in patches.

Before we look at that though, there’s plenty on the album that will make you feel all fuzzy inside. ‘Echo Of love’, which is the mellowest that CSS have ever sounded, has future single all over its DNA. A sprightly hook here, a chorus built for the grass fields of summer there and Lovefoxxx sounding surprisingly sweet, which builds on the reggae-tinged first single ‘Hits Me Like A Rock’.

Naturally, it wouldn’t be a CSS record without some grungy glam and ‘City Grrrl’ delivers it by the boat load. From the slinking bass, to the western-esque trumpets that hide behind the chorus, to the hissed ‘Don’t live your life girl… unless it’s just like a movie,’ ‘City Grrrl’ is Lady Gaga hooking up with City of God. Which is naturally, bloody brilliant.

There’s also the lo-fi ‘La Liberación’, which is scuzzy and stripped-back. It may only last 130 seconds, but it’s easily one of the highlights, as it’s where the band sounded lifted from whatever weighed them down on predecessor ‘Donkey’. This freedom also gives ‘Fuck Everything’ a charged energy that ends the album on a high note.

But for all of the albums charm, there are several tracks that are at best ill-conceived and at worst incredibly dull.

Case in point: opener ‘I Love You’. There’s the unattractive keyboard melody that dwarfs the song, a by-the-number guitar hook lurking underneath it and the incredibly clunky lyrics that Lovefoxxx tries her best with. ‘The rain is falling on my head, bring thoughts I’ve never had, like love and shit’ certainly isn’t a genius line. ‘Red Alert’ has a pleasingly sleazy bass-line that could soundtrack more than few drunken glances, but the song plods along for far too long, never knowing what to do with it.

Other tracks, like ‘You Could Have It All’ and ‘Partners In Crime’ are the closest we’ll ever come to a CSS ballad. ‘You Could Have It All’ has possibly the most disappointing chorus on the album, especially considering the forceful verses that see the band cruise through the song, only to stop dead come the chorus. ‘Partners In Crime’ on the other hand has a lack of any real imagination or spark. Instead of giving the album an emotional weight, it merely sucks out all of the momentum that preceded it.

Because of this, ‘La Liberación’ never quite gels into a cohesive whole, pretty much destroying whatever impression it begins to leave. Just when we start to like the mellow CSS, there’s the horribly dull, almost-ballad ‘You Could Have It All’. The lo-fi punk band that greets us on the title track sound like distant ancestors of the mid-tempo one of ‘Partners In Crime’. It makes for a frustrating experience that never quite feels as exciting or intimate as it thinks it is, or you want it to be.