Alternative
Barcelona’s own Viven have released their third record. Carlos Aranda (bass and vocals), Eloi Martínez (drums, keyboards and vocals), Rubén Martínez (vocals and guitar) and Dani Soler (guitar) bring us “Aquí en el infinito”, featuring collaborations with Kantz, Playback Maracas and Qverno, among others.
We begin the listen with a bass introduction, powerful, dense and excellent, setting the tone for how this instrument is produced across the whole album — genuine crème caramel. The drums then join the ostinato, and the filtered voice presents the verse. Were it not for the track being mostly in 7/8, you might think “El Rey Esqueleto” was a fairly ordinary pop-rock song, especially given the rather standard chorus and the heavy mastering compression. We’ll come back to that point.
“Blanco” alternates a dark section that could appeal to doom fans, with an insistent riff and vocal melodies recalling more indie-leaning bands. Later, the middle section before the solo gives us a nice interplay of two guitars providing counterpoint to a more conventional lead vocal. The closing section brings back several of the ideas already laid out, ending abruptly and effectively.
And like the previous two tracks, “Grande la Cruz” doesn’t benefit from this album’s heavy compression. Over-compressing works better in other styles where you don’t need to track subtleties, since here it ends up creating a kind of blur where it’s hard to tell the three songs apart. This mastering choice — since the mix itself is superb — becomes obvious in the interlude, where there’s much less sonic pressure, and despite lacking the dynamics that this treatment specifically holds back, you can appreciate the excellent musical quality. But precisely when we hear the parts with the whole band playing in unison and close our eyes, the only real difference from bands like Izal comes down to the distortion.
We can see how, on “La Calma”, which is a much more minimalist composition in its first section, everything works perfectly. So I’m convinced the best version of Viven will always be found live, and accordingly we should enjoy them on stage. Focusing on the song itself, it’s a kind of bittersweet ballad with an interesting dramatic turn toward an instrumental ending.
A relentless bass-and-drums introduction leads us into a section with a taste for pop-flavoured vocal melodies, the particular hallmark found across the whole record. These contrast with an intense, forceful riff from a biting guitar. “Aquí en el Infinito” gives the whole record its title and could be split into two sections. The first is the one just described, and a second, more relaxed one where, back to the over-compression issue, we find a snare drum that distorts (subtly, but that’s what you get listening on headphones) and doesn’t seem intentional. And of course, if the aim was a delicate atmosphere, it ends up being the exact opposite. Hey, who knows, I’m not inside the artists’ heads, and maybe that’s exactly what they wanted, and they’re probably thinking: “This guy doesn’t get it”.
This wasn’t a problem on “Las tripas y el lodo” (2018), where the production was similar but the mastering different. Nor on “El solitario” (2014), though the production was less elaborate back then. In the end, as an artist, you have to pick your preference: a more modern, mainstream sound that comes with the difficulties described, or avoiding those setbacks and risking not sounding as current. Hi-fi purists would probably side with the second option.
But let’s get back to the album. “Realidades Paralelas” is a fairly standard rock song, with a rather lovely guitar treatment in the second half, working through some curious arpeggios. Its interlude is also quite attractive. The verse then repeats, closing with a coda and another abrupt ending.
The introduction to “El Palmar” repeats some of the previous track’s good ideas. An authoritative bass with the sound I’ve already said I fell for, guitars offering an almost ethereal, tasteful counterpoint, intensely played drums, and vocals more typically associated with other styles. Once again, we get an enchanting interlude leading us back to the conclusion, where a voice filtered through a vocoder is introduced, giving a lovely effect, and finally, a closing section where you can appreciate a dynamism that, for technological reasons, isn’t otherwise very present.
An introduction in Catalan, about the cult of passivity, dubbed into German and accompanied by a delicate guitar, presents “Era Pasividad”. A rather ambient song, which always works well on a long record, carrying a fairly clear message: passivity makes you a slave. Something new here is a clarinet in the closing section, which ends up making this a genuinely standout track.
And the album closes with “Hora Supernova”. Against the band’s forcefulness, much softer vocal lines are set, giving this final track a very personal character. Plenty of instrumental richness, seasoned with a notable musical language, gives this progressive-rock track a more than brilliant finale for the record. A more than phenomenal way to close out an album that keeps building in crescendo.
Writer: David Sàez