Os Mutantes
Haih or Amortecedor
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Label: Anti-
Listening to the results of Os Mutantes having stepped back into the studio after a 35 year absence is a delicate affair. You know what’s expected, but anything short of a masterpiece will be a letdown. Everyone wants the 1960s to re-flower under the Brazilian psychedelic masters but the context for them making music has changed, and Os Mutantes wants everyone to understand that they’re moving forward too. The air of danger around the band has dissipated, taking the edge off much of their wit. Part of the hallmark of Os Mutantes was their combination of politics and symbolism, meshed in a way that slyly poked fun at the Brazilian military dictatorship. While politics still permeate Haih Or Amortecedor, with songs like “Baghdad Blues” and “Samba Del Fidel,” but the band is allowed to be more open in their criticisms. The need to shroud their lyrics in the fanciful symbols of magical realism is gone though. Sure, the songs still have their fair share of allusions and imagery, particularly on “Neurosciencia Do Amor,” but it all seems a little more heavy-handed than in the past. Also, part of their allure, was how the musical traditions of the past and the present merged to create a new way of communicating about a future landscape that listeners, both then and now, have enjoyed discovering. All those elements are present in Haih, but the proportions have changed and the language is no longer secret.
The world of Os Mutantes is now a global one, if no longer a magical one. Haih explodes, right from the get go with the bombast of “Querida, Querida” as new singer Bia Mendes voice booms from the balcony and the band swings wildly from genre to genre. In the past, the Mutants might have been tempered by the more ingrained rustic elements of Brazilian music, but not so much here; only “Anagrama” comes close to the more introspective numbers of the past. There’s no chance for the album to build to anything, it’s all crescendo, and the band seems to be borrowing far more than they’re inventing musically. Whereas before the psychedelic rock riffs nestled up against nascent bossa nova and samba, the listener on Haih is just as likely to find Middle-Eastern and Hindu rhythms, as on “Teclar” and “Gopala Krishna Om,” next to the pop rock of “O Mensageiro” and funk of “O Careca.” In between this musical pastiche are songs like “2000 e Agarrum,” which convey the wit of principal songwriter and only remaining original member, Sergio Dias.
Dias, and veteran Tropicalia fellow-travelers Jorge Ben and Tom Ze, seem caught between their desires to chronicle life in the favelas of Brazil, while remaining a part of the outside world. The production is tight, and the songs flow easily in and out of genres, leaving some speculation as to whether Dias has attempted to craft Haih as a concept album, but that might be a hidden gem for more fluent Portuguese speakers. In general though, .Haih finds Os Mutantes struggling, but determined, to find their place in a world where the means of oppression and coercion are increasingly subtle, resulting in the arousal of the need for the band to help usher in a secret language of revolution for the second time in their career.
by Sean Marchetto
