Aiko, the group, arrives at its third album, having become one of the most distinctive bands in contemporary Spanish punk. Teresa Iñesta, Lara Miera and Bárbara López handle guitars, voices and keyboards with a arsenal of strengths at their disposal: those power-pop vocal harmonies that also appear in Repion, the immediate pop punch of their songs, and synths with a horror-punk inclination that give the collection a peculiar edge. But above all, it is the personality of their lyrics, which know how to translate emotion into concrete imagery.
There is something of everyday poetry in Aiko’s songs as a band, and even though many tracks pass quickly, the lyrics linger and keep turning in your mind. It is striking that a power-pop-punk track like ‘Suspiria’ has such beautiful lyrics: “I’m not going to give you a hug / It’s like hugging a mannequin / You have the shape of a person / But there’s no trace of you.” Did someone mention Vainica Doble? Well, there they seem to be in ‘ni todo ni nada,’ with vocal harmonies and acoustic guitar.
Other stories on ‘Señales Brutales’ seek less poetry and speak outright about vomiting, anxiety, mental collapse or “shit flying around there,” and they do so through urgent and immediate songs as well. Suddenly even falling in love disgusts them, as in ‘Modo sigilo,’ while the punk-rock banger ‘el aWard es para:’ points to the typical fake guy with plenty of irony and without resorting to clichés.
The ballad ‘Espectro’ creates an entire emotional landscape, crystallizing in a shared house where a sad silence has taken hold. The fact that the song begins with a two‑minute ambient intro makes more sense than it first appears: when the voice finally enters, we are already inside that space. In the central part, the album loses some speed with ‘Paciencia’ or ‘Césped falso,’ though ‘Oda a la muerte de nuestro amor’ recovers the momentum by playing with its shifts between piano, guitars and harmonies.
And perhaps the idea of ending with ‘Introducción’ is deliberate as well. With it, Aiko the group return exactly to where they started, once again fast-paced, melodic and not falling into what you might expect. Among the opening bangers, the more acoustic detours and those keyboards that pop up like small jolts, Brutal Signals finds its personality precisely by not staying in one place for too long.
