Critic's evaluation
The year 2022 is already sitting up in bed and removing its shoes, but it's not ready to fall asleep yet. Even before that happens, the Fluminense quintet Onda Errada HC takes another step in their career by announcing their self-titled debut studio album.
With no introduction or soaring sound that softens and prepares the spectator's ear for what to expect. No time to properly discern the melodic profile. It's like a punch, a jolt, but all with a malemolence that fuses northeast and southeast. Surprisingly fusing xote with hardcore, Onda Errada HC comes with a catchy, but harsh track, from its clear, outrageous and uninhibited critique of the fascist behavior that Brazilians have evidenced in recent years. As a non-metaphorical metaphor to the sense of intolerance, recklessness, and prejudice that came along with the fascist theme raised by Jean Marcel Chactoura's raspy and high-pitched vocal, Até Ele Morrer manages, curiously, to flirt with the rhythmic theme of Pedra Letícia. Mixing psychedelia through the hypnotic guitar lines of Mateus Ferrari and Gustavo Felix, Até Ele Morrer has a catchy and at the same time acid refrain that makes it clear to the listener that the track is simply a cry of revolt for the extremist and authoritarian behavior that emerged from the population during the election of Jair Bolsonaro. In its lyrical structure, by the way its rhymes are created, the listener can even perceive the influence of Nação Zumbi, with special mention to their single Quando A Maré Encher. This gives Até Ele Morrer strong and striking manguebeat lines.
A reddish illumination breaks through the darkness. The rocky terrain is evidenced as well as the rough and sharp texture of the pointed stones that serve as the foundation of the environment. Suddenly, it is as if the whole still enigmatic setting has been transformed into a kind of medieval-era play, full of cynicism and a comic tone that feeds only the moneyed class. This is how, with the help of Brayner Rodrigues' drums, Selva De Concreto manages to imprint influences from The Offspring in a sound that flirts with pop punk while talking about the reality of the worker, the common person and his exhausting routine in the maintenance of his own sustenance. With a clear leaning towards the left, the song vehemently questions the scenographic coitism created around those who provide the breadwinner for others. And in this process, it is interesting how Vinicius Câmara's bass can imprint swing and help soften the dense socioeconomic criticism that fills Selva De Concreto, an important single from the album.
Purposeful clicks insert lo-fi flirtations in the melodic and dirty pop punk that begins to be built. Sunny and already managing to convey the hilarious and a sense of debauchery from the high-pitched overdrive of the lead guitar, Laboratório Do Inferno manages to be even more catchy than Selva De Concreto and managing to win the definitive title of most important radio single from Onda Errada HC so far. Explosive, Laboratório Do Inferno is a track that brings the company of Hajed's loose, slightly low-pitched vocals that, in the bridge and under the unique company of the bass's bass linearity, help reinforce the message of criticism for the endemic neglect of politics towards the underprivileged. Blacks, poor people. They are the focus of the critique, but it also covers all those who in some way are relegated to marginality by the helplessness of the State. Political and religious manipulation has never been so prominent, nor has the lack of representation. And it is in this tone of rejection to the falsehood and the spoiled sense of personalism that Laboratório Do Inferno even flirts with the lyrical slant of A Face De Deus, single by Inocentes.
The sound of distortion calls. Followed by a typically rock and roll base à la Chubby Checker, it kicks off a comic lyrical introduction that appropriates the slogan used to designate the arrival of Superman in comics and animation. From there on, the melody becomes fast and catchy from its mix between hardcore and pop punk. Melodic and flirting with the structure of Come Out And Play, The Offspring's single, it comes with a quickly pronounced lyricism that makes it difficult to interpret. Intentionally or not, this decision helps in creating the notion of agonizing chaos that, in Super Verme, marries the metaphor of the effect of a malicious agent on the human body. Something that causes hallucination, lapses of madness, and unbridled intensity. Super Verme is a track that speaks of prejudice against the poor, criticizes police recklessness, and even imposes itself before the idea of censorship. It is the disgust before the extreme right and the false conservative sense of unbreakable purity.
The bass emerges with a melody that inspires the comic from the birth of something that sounds, regarding the bass, like an integral part of the soundtrack to the franchise Hangover. It gives way to a swinging melody, soft and at the same time acid by the sound of the hammond that embraces the sound context, the bass follows as an important rational element of the song. Between psychedelia and hardcore, Rude, Pega A Visão manages to bring the narcotic and the reality from clean and well equalized melodies and others more visceral and dirty. Everything helps to illustrate the ambiguity of the behavior of those who are unfortunately manipulated and molded by the social-political context. Of course, there is still the perfect description of the right-wing individual. A perfect critique of the way society acts upon the individual.
From a new wave introduction that ends up flirting with the melodic theme of White Wedding, Billy Idol's single, the song matures into a reggae swing that, along with a light xote immersion, gives a counterpoint to an interesting dramatic dosage provided by the harmony. O Milico, as the name suggests, appropriates the term 'miliciano' and criticizes, in a pejorative way, issues that involve the character of the miliciano. Personalism, social-conservative impunity, hypocrisy, instinctiveness, and impulsiveness. O Milico is simply the critique of the impunity nailed on these individuals that is little discussed and not contradicted at all.
Melancholy merges with reggae-hardcore, which, like O Milico, communicates influences from names like Raimundos and Charlie Brown Jr.. With a beach aroma, soft melody and a contagious swing, the song surprises by bringing an explosive and harsh-sounding chorus that manages to be attractive while breaking the intoxicating doldrums grounded by the song. It is with this melodic antithesis that Terra Arrasada criticizes the marginalization of the Latin people and the neglect of the consequences of some tragedies involving private companies in the lives of citizens. Without transparency, but with a description that makes the listener understand the mention of the disasters in Mariana and Brumadinho, Terra Arrasada is based on the rejection of slave labor that, even today, exists under the optics of abusive contracts.
Sunny, soft and melodic. In this contagious context, the guitar solo has great weight in the construction of a more popular and attractive sound that flirts with psychedelia. Managing to be intoxicating in some passages, the song is the first and only one on Onda Errada HC to bring hard rock into its rhythmic structure. Má Vontade speaks of dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction. Yet in its depth, it is a song that rejects the unwavering sense of recklessness of one who uses what he has and what he doesn't have, complains about life, and in the end, his own acts of irresponsibility were responsible for getting him into a bad condition.
His aroma is undeniably leftist, as is that present in Democracia De Plástico and La Civilisation De La Graine. However, unlike them, Onda Errada HC comes strong in its critique of all aspects surrounding the right-wing layer: the behavior, the ideology, the essence, and the thinking.
In this context, the quintet is not afraid to oppose the Bolsonarist extremism and is not afraid to bring, in their lyricisms, the rejection to police impunity. Full of audacity and mixing humorous debauchery to cause even more repulse to the conservative layer, the intention of the album, in its essence, is to find the place and the moment in which the Brazilian people got lost.
For those who listen to it, it is certain that what jumps to the ears are harsh, rigid, and aggressive lyrics against extremism, authoritarianism, and conservatism propagandized and popularized in the Bolsonaro mandate, however, deep down, there is a latent lament in relation to this reality.
The persistent existence of slavery, the consistent and denied liveliness of monetary and racial prejudice, the political neglect and marginalization of the less favored. Even to the most inattentive, its essences scream for their minds to accept that these issues are inadmissible. But what Onda Errada HC brings up is how politics manipulates the individual for the sake of his or her own beliefs. It is almost like a response to the conclusion held by philosopher Jean-Jacques Russeau, which predicts that man is good and society corrupts him.
In the dialogue of such events, Onda Errada HC teamed up with Renan Carriço to promote a sound that represented the absurdity in relation to these social scenarios. This is how pop punk, hard rock, hardcore, xote, psychedelia, reggae, lo-fi and new wave merged among the eight titles of the album. All with a garage sound, raw and sometimes melodic that show the quintet's character.
Closing the technical scope comes the cover art. Signed by Felipe Fonseca, it is adorned by vivid colors whose tones and disposition are reminiscent of the Jamaican flag. Despite this reassuring impression, the numbness soon dissipates when you realize that, in the center, Christ the Redeemer is knocked out by a giant fist extended by what appears to be a tsunami. It is the perfect metaphor for the breakdown of conservatism and malfeasance propaganda by the right-wing caucus.
Released on 12/01/2022 in an independent way, Onda Errada HC is the complete rebuff by the right-wing caucus. But at its core, it is the simple lament for the evident and well-founded return of the Brazilian population towards the achievement of an egalitarian and tolerant community. It is an album that represents the disappointment of some Brazilians in relation to others who, blind in their unresolved rage, turn social interaction into a stage for witch-hunts.
