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NOTE: These jackets are printed on soft recycled material, so expect ever so slight imperfections. Still look great overall! Just be aware.
Leprosario is Mexico City’s Ojo Por Ojo second LP. After two years in the making they bring us a more powerful and somber album than their previous releases. 10 tracks full of ugliness, anger and despair that will delight the fans of the gloomier side of hardcore punk. There is some early English crust in the mix but you can also pick up some sludge influences in the riffs. The lyrics address topics like systemic violence, death worship in Mexico, horrible fable-like stories about cursed characters and many more subjects leaning to the shadiest side of humanity.
The chilango power trio tried to replicate the sensations you go through when you have one of those hangover anxiety attacks or maybe they wanted to musicalize a nocturnal flight on a broom DUI over a CDMX slum. Whether they delivered it or not is your call. The reality is, this record is different from most punk sounds and aesthetics that we are experiencing right now and that must count for something.
Our take: Mexico City’s Ojo Por Ojo is back with a new album, and if you liked the direction they were headed on their recent 2-song flexi, Paroxismo, you’re gonna love it. Since the beginning, Ojo Por Ojo has been a relentlessly bleak band, exploring the depths of human cruelty, pain, and suffering in their music, lyrics, and artwork. Steve Albini recorded Paroxismo, which was clearer and denser than their previous album, and even though he didn’t have a part in Leprosario, the sound remains changed. Leprosario is huge, rich, and bright, but rather than feeling glossy, it’s like looking at vomit on the sidewalk in the clarity of a sunny summer day. While the subject is as dark and uncomfortable as ever, these songs are so rich with texture that you get lost in the detail. It’s like Ojo Por Ojo has married Amebix’s brutal chug with Slint’s delicate iridescence. The closing track, “Carne,” is the prime example, a gloomy march that will have you alternately reaching and recoiling. And, as we expect from this band and the Cintas Pepe label, the artwork is excellent, its detailed illustrations and collages embodying everything I love about the music. What a record.