Los Planetas – Super 8

LOS PLANETAS has enjoyed a fruitful career as one of Spain’s leading indie rock bands. This group formed all the way back in 1990 in Granada when vocalist / guitarist Juan Rodríguez (Jota) and guitarist Florent Muñoz discovered they had similar musical tastes while attending the University of Granada. After finding May Oliver (bass) and Paco Rodríguez (drums). Together they immediately formed a group called Los Subterráneos and recorded a bunch of tunes that would start becoming popular on the underground indie scene. The band was inspired by such groups as Mercury Rev, Spaceman 3 and Joy Division but being Spanish has also been willing to add a bit of flamenco in their music here and there. After two years the moniker Los Subterráneos was dropped and LOS PLANETAS was born and competed in various contests which won them a spot as regulars on radio programs dedicated to Spanish indie music. Even at the demo stage the band was finding popularity and so by the time LOS PLANETAS finally recorded and released its debut album SUPER 8 in 1994, the alternative everything 90s had arrived and the band experienced considerable success in its homeland which got a record label from BMG as the Spanish scene went international. The band’s popularity was fairly instantaneous as the first album produced the first hit “Qué puedo hacer” (What can I do?)” and the rest is history. The band is still active today. SUPER 8 is a noisy affair with heavily distorted guitars spewing out feedback throughout the album’s length of ten tracks at 45 minutes. Sounding somewhat like a reckless Spanish Sonic Youth with a more relaxed Joy Division chill, LOS PLANETAS cranks out a veritable roster of indie rock tracks that fit right into the larger world scene although all lyrics are in the band’s native Spanish. “De Viaje” beings the noisy affair with scary guitar sounds but the music quickly becomes more pop flavored with a groovy bass line and subordinate drumbeat. The low key vocal style of Jota finds itself buried beneath the jangly guitar tones fuzzed out to heavy decibelage, but the band does a great job at maintaining that power punk style of sound that was made big by bands like Green Day and Weezer only with a much sloppier garage band approach with all those thick layers of feedback fuzz.