The Tracks is an LA-based band consisting of Venancio Bermudez (vocals), Felipe Contreras (bass), Jimmy Conde (drums) and Juan Santana (guitar). The quartet first met at the Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, finding common ground in a mutual love of rock music, so it is fitting that their new album Paredón Blanco is dedicated to both the place in which they grew up and the music which soundtracked their days there. Paredón Blanco (White Bluff) was the name Boyle Heights held before the Mexican-American War and the subsequent colonial land grab, and the album’s title feels doubly relevant for a Chicano band working in a genre from which Chicano people have been all too readily excluded. In terms of both place and music, The Tracks are right at home.
It’s clear from the confident rhythm of opener ‘Glance’ that The Tracks are fully immersed within this mindset. Equal parts raw and smooth, a seductive night time mood somewhere between Strokes-esque indie and Lynchian bar room blues. Songs like ‘A to B’ offer Brit rock vibes, ‘Her’ something closer to Killers-style stadium rock, while others lean toward punk (‘You People’) and post-punk. The latter find the band at their menacing best, starting with the foreboding instrumental ‘Thoughts of Moments Past’ at the album’s midpoint and leading through the unhinged danger of ‘Red Coats’ and nocturnal threat of ‘Wall Street’.
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Here is where the oppositional aspect of The Tracks style comes to the fore. The sense of adversary flipped so as to become the agents of change. Wall Street is burning, armies are on the march, faith has been lost. “Can you forgive the crooked fuckers that did you wrong?” asks ‘Shut Your Mouth. “You been hoping they’ll see you rise.” But as the track circles back to remind us. “It’s a choice you could follow the crowd / It’s choice you could follow the trends.” The possibility to refuse to play the game becomes clear.
Closer ‘Your Bike’ captures the mood. “Won’t you see him, at the corner stop of the bus there,” the song begins, each line repeated in simmering emphasis. “Don’t you let out what you see, what you see / Yeah we’re here again, all right once more.” An announcement. An arrival. The track escalating toward its fevered conclusion as sax snakes into the night air, the promise of the record made good.
Adolescence of a young precious mind
In the night skies of the wilderness, of the wilderness
Again, And again
Anarchy, Anarchy, Anarchy
Won’t you see him
Don’t you see him
Don’t you see him
Don’t you see him, again
‘Your Bike’ comes complete with a video directed by Dylan Dixon:
Paredón Blanco is out now and available from The Tracks Bandcamp page.
Cover art by Venancio Bermudez, photo by Omar Martinez