With their wanderings through different tailors’ shops, Morreo’s first two records defined their style perfectly. The most yé-yé-influenced group you can imagine today drew from psychedelia, flamenco-flavored chords, melodic songcraft, the fanfare of La Casa Azul (always so inspired by Electric Light Orchestra), and even a dash of Susana Estrada’s audacity… All so utterly 70s that even the duo’s two members carry surnames borrowed from great authors of that era: Luna Cubero are Joseca’s, and Marchena Borrego are José Germán’s.
“Combination Plate,” their debut album on Mushroom Pillow, doesn’t introduce major shifts to the formula. It’s the typical third record that irons out a distinctive sound. If it has a conceptual pretext, it has nothing to do with its mistaken title (which is also very 70s, to be fair), but rather with death, the end of the things we love, and the need to pour ourselves into our friends. It even nods to the idea of a sect as a shelter that hovered over Corazón’s second album.
Morreo begin the album by giving you the “welcome” to their world: “give me your hand, follow me to death and I swear you’ll forget.” And they finish with the ode to friendship that is “Casa Amigos”: “within my house there will always be a place for all my friends, so that we can live together and have fun.” In between, there are tributes to death (“Vamos a morir”), memories of bars that meant something and then closed (“Gracias por su visita”), or celebrations of music (“Locos por el ritmo”).
It’s very curious that, as a couple, Morreo write so few love songs. It isn’t something they hide, as it seeps into the same “Locos por el ritmo” and frames that romance in the middle of an end-of-the-world scenario titled “Fuerza bruta.” But beyond thematic variety, there’s the approach: “Me da la tos” draws an improbable parallel between love and tobacco… and what to say about that catalog of weapons called “Soy una bomba.” It sounds like it could have been written by deputy Ana Vázquez: if pepper spray could slip into Congress, why shouldn’t it fit into this strange romantic song.
The flamenco cadence sneaks into these two tracks, but the album’s atmosphere remains ultra-festive. This flavor is especially palpable in the final single “PIM PAM PUM,” which even echoes in speed and pulse Ricky Martin’s hits like “Living la Vida Loca” or “She Bangs.” That’s the level.
The band’s idea, which has even staged performances in a discotheque-style setting, is to put a brave face on bad times. From all the unease the world dishes out, they protect themselves with grooves (“Locos por el ritmo”), synthesized winds (“Bienvenidos”) and electric guitars like those that sound in “No hagas nada.” It’s another imagined track about the accelerated tempos of turbo-capitalism, when procrastination has shifted from a joke to a mental-health emergency. Morreo are here to bring music from the past into the topics of the present.
