Señales Brutales: Aiko el grupo keep the heartbreak short

Aiko el grupo make short records. Señales Brutales, their third, is ten songs in a little over twenty-seven minutes, and most of them are done before you have found the room. The heartbreak comes in small cold scenes, each one shut before it can turn into a speech. The first of them is a narrator crying quietly at a place tied to an ex, telling a broken statue about it, feeling sick.

The band come to this with two albums behind them: Va totalmente en serio... in 2020 and Me están apuntando con un arma in 2023, which means they are pointing a gun at me. The titles have been losing patience for six years, and the temperature here stays low. It is out on Primavera Labels, in Spain, with a vinyl pressing listed for next year.

The release is a digital album on Bandcamp, ten euros or more, downloads in 24-bit/48kHz, and the lyrics arrive with every track. These songs are built on what the narrator says, and the words come attached because the words are the record. The two longest songs, 'Oda a la muerte de nuestro amor' and 'espectro', are held back for the second half, where the weight can land.

The opening run sets the register. 'modo sigilo' is a visit to a place that belongs to a former partner, a broken statue for company, the narrator thinking of them and feeling ill. 'el aWard es para:' goes after someone who stays professional about it, never sad, kind and violent at once, a person who has made the narrator spit out 'I love you' like a stone. 'cuándo un min??' is the shortest thing here, all exhaustion: running loaded and never arriving, asking for one minute of peace, refusing calls and messages, tired and cold, sitting down on organic waste.

'Paciencia' asks for patience right before giving up, bad news falling like meteorites, the narrator tiny and useless, sending an S.O.S. 'Suspiria' is worse: the damage is immeasurable, seeing the person is unbearable, and hugging them is like hugging a mannequin, human shape with nobody inside it. Then 'Oda a la muerte de nuestro amor' builds an ode on a collar that was expensive and will not oxidize, found in the dirty socks, with the killing done only in the narrator's head.

The last stretch loosens its grip a little. 'césped falso' puts the scene on fake grass, talking too loud, laughing until the voice goes, a hurricane of personal things flying between two people who both know the game can break them. 'espectro' returns to a cold house and the childhood spent in it, two people watching TV, the light left on to stay alert, no cat at the door, cold hands, a missing piano. 'ni todo ni nada' is the shrug: neither all nor nothing, neither always nor never, no questions asked, olive oil bought, adult fears, oversalting the food, the same chords played again that never sound the same. And 'Introducción' closes it, joy arriving from nowhere, one leg in and one out, sleeping well, fine without them.

This is for anyone who has put on a breakup record and found it too generous. Nothing here builds to a reconciliation and nothing warms up in the last act: ten songs, twenty-seven minutes, a narrator who mostly wants to be left alone. If you take your heartbreak with a tune under it and no patience for the long version, start here.

The brevity costs something. 'el aWard es para:' is the one song reaching for a joke, the awards-show title sitting over a scene of kindness used as a weapon, and the distance the joke creates makes the cruelty smaller than it should be. A few of the two-minute cuts, 'cuándo un min??' among them, stop just as the scene starts to breathe. The record is right to be short and not always right about where to stop.

None of that sinks it. 'espectro' and 'Oda a la muerte de nuestro amor' carry enough weight for the whole runtime, and the closer is the sharpest move on the record: an ending called 'Introducción', arriving after nine songs about the same person, saying the narrator is fine without them. The brevity is the method. A four.

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