ALBUM REVIEW: Derramar | Querer | Borrar – Massa Nera

Much has been made of the screamo revival of late, but honestly it’s never really been short on quality. It was bigger in the 00s, and arguably better in the 90s, but there are loads of records that have arrived over the past decade or so that absolutely hold up against all the classics. One was MASSA NERA’s 2017 debut full-length Los Pensamientos De Una Cara Palida – a sonically ambitious, politically-charged record that’s finally getting a follow-up which takes all that even further in the form of Derramar | Querer | Borrar.

For those unfamiliar with the band’s previous work, the album’s runtime alone offers a decent clue of the kind of screamo MASSA NERA lean into. Stretching just past 49 minutes, and with most of the tracks flowing directly into one another, this is a bold, expansive record that certainly borrows a thing or two from post-rock in a manner that should prove deeply pleasing to fans of bands like CITY OF CATERPILLAR and ENVY. Its dynamic breadth is clear from the off, with opener An Endless Cycle // I Was More Than The Weight Of My Work defined just as much by its sparsity and slow-builds as it is by its bursts of staggering intensity. 

With that opener filling nearly all of seven and a half minutes, it quickly becomes clear that one of MASSA NERA’s biggest achievements here is injecting often quite lengthy compositions with an urgency that makes them feel significantly shorter. Lost Faces is an early highlight, its hypnotic closing jam not the only time there’s a noticeable jazziness to this release. Easily the biggest surprise comes with the very aptly-named fifth track Shapeshift though, where an initial minute or so of straining screamo pivots dizzylingly to the kind of processed beats, sampled vocals and delayed synths you’re more likely to find floating out of Café Mambo in Ibiza than anywhere near Distorted Sound’s usual haunts. It’s a bewildering left-turn that’s enough to put listeners on their toes for the remainder of the record – as though literally anything could happen from there.

Admittedly, fewer surprises follow, but the quality holds steady regardless. There’s actually something of a run of shorter, more straight-ahead pieces immediately after Shapeshift, with a particularly impressive overarching suite from A Faint Goodbye all the way through to You Mean So Much More Than Misery To Me in which each track flows into the next as part of a dynamic and cinematic whole. Taken individually, there’s plenty of strength here too; from the torturous close of Eyeless Faces, to the blast-beat driven Wanting (Ghosts Haunting Ghosts), to the lovely violin embellishments of the aforementioned You Mean So Much More…, it is abundantly clear that MASSA NERA can hang with any of the best bands in their genre, with every passage of unhinged violence earned and heightened by something quieter, more considered, and often quite beautiful.

Closer Anchored does all this brilliantly one last time, its final drone looping right back to the record’s opening moments in a move that feels no less satisfying despite the fact that it’s been done plenty before now. It highlights that even though this album is broken into what feels like a few clear sections, and with a very obvious dividing line near the middle, Derramar | Querer | Borrar still manages to offer a complete and cohesive journey. MASSA NERA never let their ambitions run away from them and have instead created a work that pushes against what one might expect from screamo while also satisfying die-hard fans of the genre with all the emotion and essentials you could ever possibly ask for.

Rating: 8/10

Derramar | Querer | Borrar is set for release on December 2nd via Zegema Beach Records.

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