As soon as I heard the new EP by the Valencian EBM band Spammerheads, I wrote to my friend Karl, one of the bastions in Madrid of the genre that Front 242 named. I wanted to recommend him this album, entitled Tar Blood/Cement Skin, released just a few months ago by the Valencian label Soil Records, in which the duo proves to be capable of creating new anthems in one of our favourite genres.
The duo formed by Ana Escudero and David Garrido began their career with the self-produced album Sound of Spam in 2020. That same year they released the single Standby Cities, and the EP Earth Reset. A year later, they attracted the interest of the Valencian label Soil, which released a cassette, already sold out, entitled Bricks for Reconstruction, while other Valencian label, in this case HC Records, released the cassette, Espai, Temps i Matèria. Now, it is again Soil that is releasing this EP of five tracks in a limited edition of 300 pink vinyls.
In Tar Blood/Cement Skin we find good EBM, with a classic flavour, thanks in part to the voice that sometimes reminds me of McCarthy, but with the sound of the modern productions that are so popular nowadays.
Tar Blood/Cement Skin begins with “The Big Machine Never Wrecks” a powerful track in which David Garrido doubles his voice with very good results. As they say, in this album they have put special interest in the vocal part and it is specially noticeable in this song. The music is raw, seeking to reproduce the sounds of the suburban factories, among which the duo lived as children. They continue with “The Damage’s Done” with a way of creating tension and releasing it that reminds me of the best. The closing track on side A is this week’s video of the week. If you open our page a couple of times, you will see that it is a very catchy composition, with a killer rhythm. The title: “Driving Nowhere”.
On the flip side we have “Noir de Blanc”, a haunting track, the only instrumental of all, and still, one of the best tracks on the album. The albums comes to an end with “Dear Hangover”, a more intense and less frenetic track dedicated to the unloved hangovers.
Tar Blood/Cement Skin is a release that will appeal to both classic EBM lovers and those who like more modern sounds. If you’re even slightly interested in the genre, don’t hesitate to check it out.
We finish by telling you to the Valencian label’s upcoming releases: the vinyl version of Honoris III originally released by the French label Unknown Pleasures and featuring covers of Bauhaus tracks by Blind Delon, Years of Denial, Radikal Kuss, Soj with Petra Flurr, Selfishshadows and Chris Shape with Su Eko from Velvet Kills. And soon we are expecting the first full-length album from Abraxas, which we interviewed for Ombra and which in its digital version has already appeared in some of the best of the year lists.
