El Perro Del Mar Reviewed
El Perro Del Mar
El Perro Del Mar
(Control Group)
Self-distancing Swede makes Brill Building pop for the terminally bored.
The idea of something tunneling into one’s skull took a formidable twist in Hannibal, the Silence Of The Lambs sequel, when Anthony Hopkins’ character took a scoop out of an unfeeling Ray Liotta’s brain. Terrifying turned into a “could that really happen?” curiosity, cluing people into the difference between the brain and actual nerve endings.
The divide couldn’t be more vividly on display than El Perro Del Mar’s debut full-length. Sarah Assbring quite obviously has a bug up her ass about something, but she paints it over so opaquely the listener’s attention strays from comiserating to just simply wanting to put her out of her misery. Begging “when you come, bring the sun,” one can’t help feel Assbring is talking to herself and she isn’t listening. Like a Ronettes, Beach Boys, or Kitty Craft record stuck somewhere on “repeat 1,” El Perro Del Mar the album never advances beyond marrying faux-happy arrangements with placid, dour sentiment. The optimist would find Assbring’s torment delicately balanced between falsely happy and abyssmally hopeless, and say she achieves exactly what she sets out to do. The cynic will unmask the lazy ruse early.
— Steve Forstneger
Click here to download “God Knows.”
