Critic's evaluation
Three years after officially launching themselves on the Brazilian music market, Bauru quartet Os Últimos Escolhidos Do Futebol have finally announced a new chapter in their career. Recorded in September 2022 at the Gargolândia studio in Alambari (SP), O Catálogo De Clichês is the group's second EP and the successor to their self-titled extended play.
A sweet, soft voice echoes in a spatial void. Between electronic sonars flirting with chiptune, João Albino appears with a brief, soft dialog in the background. When he comes to the foreground, that same vocal sounds subtly deeper, but more precise in the company of Paulo Nunes' equally soft drums and the occasional corpulence of Pedro Nunes' bass. Growing like a hypnotic, sunny and joyful indie rock, Divã is captivating in its mature, present and well-equalized sound that supports a lyricism of ardent passion, desired and literally dreamed of. With its slight flirtations with funk, Divã is the culmination of the libido that comes from the fertile imagination of a character soaked in lust.
It's with infectious pop rock that the guitar duo of Leonardo Pacheco and Sinuhe LP take center stage. With a versatile sound adorned by the possibility of flowing organically into soft rock, something that happens in its second half, it also communicates the fusion of reggae in its loose voice. In the 4x4 structure, Como Estou Dirigindo?, despite its suggestive name, is an interesting metaphor for how people see the way the character leads his life. Focused on slowing down, enjoying each moment and freedom from the clock, the track is a cheerful, soft critique of haste and immediacy in a hyper-connected, fast-paced world.
The steel guitar is the absolute protagonist. Lonely, but capable of providing a mixture of nostalgia, melancholy, freshness and interesting hints of unreasonable joy, it allows the melody to flow into a surprising xote. With this smiling regionalism, Chiara is a comic plot about a relationship that doesn't progress due to the father-in-law's lack of acceptance of his daughter's boyfriend. It's not the end or giving up. It's just a hilarious desperation to make the chemistry work without the interference of third parties. Chiara is proof that love resists prohibitions and the absence of possessions. That love breaks down barriers. And so, with this story of forbidden passion, Chiara melodically proves to be a feast of textures, sensations and loose smiles enchanted by the consistent, light and versatile musicality of Os Últimos Escolhidos Do Futebol.
It's like watching the tide go out while sitting on a beach wall under a gray winter sky. Even with its softness, the way the guitar moves carries a slightly reflective and thoughtful content about the freshness of its melody. With the right to high-pitched sighs introduced by the guitar, a brief lament that very much recreates the melancholy provided by Paul James Phillips in Blurry, a single from Puddle Of Mudd, A Cidade Quer sounds like a reverie, a longed-for trip to the past governed by generous doses of longing and desire. Desire for change, for daring, for the courage to break the doldrums. Even so, A Cidade Quer is a product that even manages to flirt with the intimate, downcast aesthetic of Amado, Vanessa da Mata's single, in its multiple facets of interpretation, which can be anything from the resumption of a relationship to the return to normality after the pandemic chaos.
It's a fusion of indie rock and alternative rock with a good mix of The Black Keys and Foo Fighters. It's adorned with a stridency that is sometimes deliberately dissonant as a way of reproducing the chaos of a peaceful town in search of the thief who stole Father Nicolau's golden rose bush. Leonardo Pacheco is not just a song. It's a story. It's a storytelling that arrives slowly, captivates, holds and arouses the listener's curiosity to discover the closure of the plot which, so striking, gives wings to scenographic imaginations while the melody, with the sensitivity of the musicians, like the back of the hand, exudes each of the emotions that arise from the lyrical plot: fear, anger, repudiation, manipulation. It's interesting to note that Leonardo Pacheco also relies on a curious reggae-soft rock rhythmic break while discussing certain Catholic practices and blessedy behavioral vices that range from denial to a state of manipulative trance.
It's as if Os Cegos Do Castelo was sung by Frejat. Hoje Sim, with its striking guitar and softly melancholic rhythm, manages to have lapses of an embryonic bossa nova through its sweet textures. The cadence of regionalist elements, on the other hand, makes Hoje Sim strangely highlight the agonies of a lonely, wounded and suffocated heart. It's like drowning in desires, in dreams, in wishes that can only be satisfied in the imagination. The breath disappears, the air runs out, the lungs fill with emptiness. The heart stops beating, but the brain continues. It keeps reliving, recreating, reminiscing and building scenarios of a delirious utopian reality. This is Hoje Sim: the parallel reality of a soul thirsting for a static ticking clock. Of a time that didn't happen, but of a past that was lived and in which a present is built, coated in unreal memories.
It's not just a collection of more of the same. O Catálogo De Clichês, adorned by six chapters that sound out and represent the lived moment of each member of Os Últimos Escolhidos Do Futebol, ranges from the ecstasy of libido to the pain of a broken heart. Humor in the face of the disgrace of prohibition and repudiation of certain practices of the faith.
What's interesting in this regard is to see how the group has moved with versatility, maturity and consistency through different rhythms in order to shape a soundtrack that, between apparent disagreements with the lyrical plot, brightens up the storytelling precisely because it proposes new perspectives on a pre-established scenario.
Between tears, laughter, sweat, delirium, attention and desires, O Catálogo De Clichês had, in the presence of Thiago Baggio, the confidence of a good sound result. With the help of the sound engineer, the EP sounded equalized, mature, consistent and precise, even during its soft leading phrases.
This is when the experimentation of Os Últimos Escolhidos Do Futebol comes to the fore in the different textures and facets mixed together on the EP. In the material, the quartet explored pop rock, soft rock, reggae, indie rock, funk, alternative rock, xote and shavings of chiptune among gloomy, joyful and hypnotically numbing atmospheres.
Rounding off the technical scope of the EP is the cover artwork. Signed by Felipe Nunes, it is lively, cheerful and capable of conveying flashes of hope through the setting sun sky. In a festive and relaxed atmosphere, the work is full of elements that represent important factors in the context of the material. Mourning, the past, bohemianism and the desire for normality are very well rooted in this drawing which is, in fact, the cliché of everyday life.
Released on 09/13/2023 via Bolo de Rolo, O Catálogo De Clichês is the mature sound of four lives sonorized into six different chapters. It's a balanced mix of textures and emotions, the great achievement of Os Últimos Escolhidos Do Futebol was to make the strange harmonious in the midst of the different chaos overflowing from various triggers scattered throughout the routine of ordinary young people.
