Album Review: Mariachi El Bronx - Mariachi El Bronx III

One of the biggest about-faces in modern music today – and arguably in music history – is the duality of LA punks The Bronx.

The band is responsible for crafting abrasive and vitriolic music that in the live arena transforms into a cathartic, almost ecstatic explosion, and this warmth – coupled with the innate charisma of frontman Matt Caughthran – has seen their fanbase spread much further than the hardcore set. Yet they also form the core of Mariachi El Bronx, an outfit dedicated to balladry with the flourishes and bombast synonymous with the Mexican folk music to which their name ascribes. The thing is, this is no pastiche – this is as serious an endeavour, if not moreso, as The Bronx.

New Beat cracks open with the requisite mariachi guitars and horns, with the oft-melancholy lyrics juxtaposed with the jauntiness of the instrumentation (with added electronic scratching further messing with the formula). The warm timbre of Caughthran’s vocal delivery always impresses, and on III he is on song more than ever. The distorted guitar that opens Sticks And Stones surreptitiously bleeds into an a cappella chorus, a buoyant expulsion; Everything Twice is a jaunty pop song, with the lyrics “She was searching for the meaning of life/She tried everything twice/For a while” nevertheless alluding to the disappointments of not coming up with an answer. It even marches strongly in the final songs, with the stirring Right Between The Eyes a call to arms before Valya explodes in spiralling light, an excellently euphoric endnote.