Critic's evaluation
He was formed in 2021. And their first material, therefore, was composed entirely during a stormy period worldwide. The Treva quartet imprinted Em Própria Razão, an album recorded at Estúdio El Rocha between the spring of 2022 and the winter of 2023, with the anguish and lack of tranquillity of the pandemic years.
The soaring chorus, with its mixture of Candomblezeiro and Indian chants, lulls the listener into a kind of mantra of hope. As if it were hidden and ready to sneak up on you, Felipe Ribeiro's guitar emerges with a controlled harshness until Pedro Hernandes' drums offer a growing phrase, like a prelude to an explosion. However, what happens after the incitement of combustion is the maturation of a soft melody under the base of a blues rock that is very reminiscent of that made by ZZ Top. The key spice is Chris Wiesen's lead guitar, which between sleepy and lazy phrases, awakens between sunny and energetic screams that imprint hard rock on the melodic recipe of XXVII, a sensual interlude of exoteric verve thanks to the backings of Julie Xavier and Maiane Souza, as well as the bed of sweet acidity provided by Gabriel Mendezz's keyboard.
It's the voice of revolt, of disbelief. A sense of unjustifiable persecution. The man who lets off steam in the form of a monologue exhorts his discontent with police impunity. Then, from this tone of almost breathless discharge from so many demands, the guitars and drums create a theme that mixes blues, hardcore and very timid shreds of rockabilly. Under a numb interpretation, Ribeiro's serene hoarseness starts the real dialog of Novo Amanhã from a softened and melancholic hardcore base. Keeping to the same sedative energy, the track is a poem that represents the chaos of a mind lost, aimless and without support. Between loneliness and helplessness, the character, even shielded by his own sick blindness, Novo Amanhã exudes the hope of a new day, a better and positive horizon.
Like an acidic cry, the sound of the guitar recreates the same energy provided by Deryck Whibley in the awakening of Pieces, Sum 41's single. Turning into a torrential downpour with an intensely melancholic base, gushing out and flooding the listener with its tone of numbing sadness, Onde Morre O Sol, with its aesthetic broadly similar to that adopted in most of the songs on Roque Marciano, an album by Detonautas Roque Clube, maintains a soft base, but with cutting tears, at the same time as sounding commercial. Structured around a 4x4 cadence, Onde Morre O Sol is hopelessness. It's the feeling of oblivion, annulment. It's the painful relationship with an unhappy past that kills any glimmer of perseverance. In the track, the Sun is even brought in as the foundation of strength and persistence. But even he, with his sovereignty, was unable to overcome the inevitable. And for this reason, the orphanhood of encouragement made the lyrical character sink into conforming to the unchangeable.
While the previous sky was almost hypnotically sad with its monochrome gray tone, the opposite is true of the new horizon. Clear, of an intense blue, fresh and with beachy notes, it brings a cheerful melody with a contagious softness. With a melancholic base, but not as dramatically lancinating as its predecessors, Quando A Fé Morrer (Onde For) communicates influences from CPM 22 and Detonautas Roque Clube in its melodic aesthetic. Just as commercial as Onde Morre O Sol, this track is another example of desolation and hopelessness. A human being in need of rationality and structure to keep up with the flow of time. Quando A Fé Morrer (Onde For) is the perfect antithesis between melody and lyrics. Proof that they can bring out different energies, creating a purposeful ambiguous scenario.
Purposely lo-fi squeaks imbue rawness as a prelude to the nostalgic acidity offered by the base guitar. In the form of an interesting mix between hardcore and indie rock, Memories & Reclusão is presented as a curiously morbid track which, with an almost ghostly backing vocal, is like living with the memory of times of chaos as a way of not repeating the same mistake. Also as a way of coming to terms with a past reality, Memórias & Reclusão condemns the denial of an event, even if it was shameful and devastating. It's the trauma, the pain, the fear. It is the consequence of the chaos of yesterday in the dawn of tomorrow.
The freshness and nostalgia are ingredients that overflow through the harmony between drums and lead guitar. With a landscape as soft as a summer sunset, the song features a Ribeiro vocal as sensual as those used by Paulo Ricardo in RPM's compositions. Whether unreasonable or not, this sensuality helps to hide the agony and despair at the end of the chaos. Like a direct continuation of Memórias & Reclusão, O Passado Que Se Tem is a snapshot of the same pandemic event and its consequences on people's lives. With verses with a melody similar to that of Flores, a single by Titãs, O Passado Que Se Tem closes with a hope as touching as the glimpse of sunlight breaking through the nocturnal darkness on mountain silhouettes in a twilight landscape.
It's as infectious as Ultraje A Rigor's songs. Sensual in its rolling screams under a galloping hard rock base, the solo guitar is the element that made the introduction attractive and interesting to the masses. Even so, the song flows into a soft hardcore song whose chorus is based on a melody similar to that of the climax of Meu Primeiro All Star, a single by Cueio Limão. With these specifications, Por Chance... Por Sangue! is yet another infectious track from Em Própria Razão, where Treva talks about disappointment. At times, it's even possible to think it's about relationships, but between the lines it carries something more acidic and even aggressive. Por Chance... Por Sangue! is simply the vision of an empty purpose. A track that, like Quando A Fé Morrer (Onde For), manages to be commercial in its antithesis between melody and lyrics. Por Chance... Por Sangue!, finally, still holds the trump card of being the first song on the album to give considerable prominence to Eduardo Moratori's previously unnoticed bass. The instrument, with its full-bodied groove and slight stridency, is the real draw of the bridge.
Fresh, soft and numbing, the song has a curious icy and floral aroma. With the help of the piano in the rhythmic beat, the song is almost embraced by boogie-woogie, but is left with the sweet base of a melancholic blues. With the female backing vocals another factor that adds to its aesthetic delicacy, Flama gradually secures its position as a ballad on Em Própria Razão. Conveying the sensation of communicating with the memory of departed loved ones, the song guarantees a touching nostalgia to its plot, which officially begins with an infectious 4x4 beat. As another song introducing indie rock to the sound recipe, Flama mixes the pandemic with the political scenario created by the Bolsonaro caucus. The direct relationship between hatred, intolerance and impunity with the false religious sense of Flama is the maddening aftermath of those who have seen peace transfigured into chaos that was discovered to have been dormant for a long time.
After the sonar of the radio station changes, the guitar introduces itself in an acid riff with a dark slant. A contained, melodic and dramatic explosion, the song is drenched in a contagious stupor, embodied by the mixture of subtlety and the slight harshness of the backing vocals structured between Julie and Rodrigo Lima. Despite the bubblegum verses, Renasce Em Dor is the most dramatic and even morbid song in the whole of Em Própria Razão. After all, in addition to the lament and the mournful melancholy, it proposes a dialog about mourning, about guilt. About forgiveness.
Like a narrative loop, the album introduces Alento, the closing track that sounds linear with XXVII. With its ambience of a candomblezeiro chant at the beginning, it slips into a soft blues in which the guitars represent, in their extensions, the cries of a relief so dreamed of by a character in intense coexistence with pain, guilt, longing and hopelessness. With a fade-out that resumes the song, Alento is the re-energizing of an individual who is tired and weak from suffering so much.
There is no love in SP. The phrase was coined by Crioulo in the similarly named song. What Em Própria Razão discusses is whether there is still love in the world, inside everyone after suffering. Not a love between couples or anything properly affective, but a love dressed up as respect, strength, perseverance and hope.
Going through chaos, pain and suffering and still managing to remain conscious, in complete control of your mental faculties and reason, are admirable situations because they are rare to observe. The album in question explores how disharmony has profoundly affected an individual.
Fragile on the inside and torn apart on the outside, the character in In Reason Itself is far from being in control of his own mind. Rather, he is under the influence of madness caused by pain, suffering, disappointment, hopelessness, desolation and loneliness.
His heart is pounding with pleading cries for a return to normality. Her eyes overflow with acid, stinging and incurable tears. Her fists burn from the force with which they are clenched. His teeth crack from the pressure his mouth is under. Anger, hatred and disbelief are factors that shape the character's (in)consciousness, even making him delirious between fantasy and reality.
It's no wonder that numbness is a common factor in all 10 songs on Em Própria Razão and that the dissonance between melody and lyricism, which is striking in the songs Quando A Fé Morrer (Onde For) and Por Chance... Por Sangue! After all, the instability of the mind and the emotional make emotion fight reason in fierce battles.
In this scenario, Treva teamed up with Fernando Sanches for production and mixing duties. Under these responsibilities, the professional positioned himself as a director full of sensitivity. After all, while guiding the band along a path of homogeneous storylines capable of capturing the intentions that should be conveyed in each of the album's lyrical plots, he was responsible for keeping the sound at a mature, quality level.
Well-equalized but incapable, with the exception of Por Chance... Por Sangue!, of clearly showing the presence of the bass, the melodies on Em Própria Razão communicate Treva's experimentation in different fields of rock. In the work, there is indie rock, hardcore, hard rock, blues, blues rock, lo-fi and rockabilly in an interesting melodic recipe.
Closing the technical context is the cover art. Signed by Wagner Loud, it is embraced by a black background which, in the context of the album, symbolizes mourning. In the center, a painting in which a burning guitar is the central element, mentions everything from chaos to ideas of eternity. Finally, the eyes brushed on the sides bring a touch of exoticism and mysticism. It's anger fused with the unpredictability of fate.
Released on 09/19/2023 via El Rocha Records, Em Própria Razão is the anguish of an individual in search of control over his emotions and his own reason. It's a snapshot of the consequences of chaos in human life. It's crying, it's numbness, it's dreaming. It's an intense desire to return to normality while the stabbing suffering continues its maddening work, confusing what is real and what is fantasy.
