NEW MEXICO
have you met my friend?
This San Diego trio has a lot to answer for. By no means negatively, but as music makers and fans of music. They wear numerous influences on their sleeves with have you met my friend? Judging by the excellent sounds, and songs, they seem like people you'd want to talk music with at a noisy party. New Mexico sound different track to track, on the seven song EP. Where it fails many bands the variety works here over and over. There's no through line to be found other than a great album with a lot of energy.
"Case Closed" opens with this cool, magnetic, echoing guitar line. The song jumps around, most fun at the chorus and then burns into oblivion by the time it ends. This one song encapsulates the power and aesthetic of the band. So does "Chosen Ones", a Mooney Suzuki-like song that pumps with the vigor of a band from Detroit trashing a warehouse filled with battered car parts. "Abused and Amused" is another crash-and-burn track that recalls The Dead 60's but is completely theirs. There's an early eighties New Wave/rock and roll sound to New Mexico. Its all rather large sounding like European bands with random hit singles and moody like The Psychedelic Furs, namely on "Quiet in the City" where the band harmonizes over slumming and slurred vocals. The guitar and drums bash and fight, making for a fantastic song that feels they could care less. New Mexico could easily become "that band" of the moment. Nothing wrong there. But it'd be a shame to have them lost in the shuffle of hipster fame when they make music that's way beyond trendy.
-Brian Tucker
