One year after our special feature on their EP, Alicante, Spain´s alt punk / post hardcore band CEMËNTERI are releasing their first album “Asma, corte, afonía, pisotón” on May 1st. Today, we’re thrilled to give you their new single “Kurtinaitis”, giving you a good idea of what to expect from the full offering.
CEMËNTERI ´s sound is clearly related to the bands that opened hardcore to the post punk sound at the end of 90´s/ beginning of the 21st century , bands that were focusing more on intensity than speed, trying to subduing chaos. Bands like Blood Brothers, Jesus Lizard, Nation Of Ulysess, These Arms Are Snakes or Drive Like Jehu, or the catalogue of labels like Dischord or Touch and Go can be heard in their songs, but not as a mere revivalist exercise in style. Instead, they try to create something fresh with their unique personality, using these references to create their own identity. Songs that varnish post hardcore with angular bass lines and rhythms, fury and intensity. Lyrically, the band mixes self-referential humor and autobiographical vignettes with social and political critique.
The band comments on the album:
We are still very excited about the álbum release , even though with the corvid19 outbreak everything has changed completely and tiny stuff like a record release seem a bit pointless… but we have worked really hard to finish it and record it during last year, and It has taken a few months to get labels involved to co-release it with us,therefore we cannot wait to put the album out. Another fact we are really proud is that the álbum was recorded in our practice room and everything . recording, mixing and mastering was done by our friend Jose Antonio Lopez in our hometown. Even the records were pressed in Castellon, less than 3 hours drive from where we live! Reduce your carbon footprint as much as you can fellas!
“Asma, corte, afonía, pisotón” was recorded, mixed and mastered by Jose Antonio Lopez on his Estudio Cubico E3(Ugatz, Therese, Flying Pig Matanza, Encono). The artwork was created by Realmente Bravo studio (C.Tangana, Carolina Durante, Cala Vento).
The song is called “Kurtinaitis” and is about Rimas Kurtinaitis a Lithuanian basketball player from the 80´s. Two of the guys in the band are big basketball freaks and we have been thinking about writing a song with a basketball related theme for a long time (we ended having two in the album because there is another one about AC Green a Lakers player from the 80´s J)
Kurtinaitis played the NBA 3 points shootout in 1989, before the Berlin Wall fall and the cold war was still a thing… I think the whole event was very humiliating for the poor guy, he couldn’t wear the cccp or his team shirt, and he ended playing with a lousy blue nondescript shirt… and everybody was booing him…you can see how nervous he is in the footage and obviously he failed completely! That´s why we sang “last victim of the coldwar” a bit tongue in cheek, but he really was. NBA took him to be destroyed and humiliated in the tournament, and to make American public to think they were way superior to “the red enemy”.
Asked about the current Coronavirus situation in Spain, the band commented:
Situation here is just mad, two weeks ago everything was basically normal, people were still thinking the whole thing wasn’t serious and doing racist jokes about the chinese virus and then suddenly people started to get ill and the outbreak got everywhere and we have been one week in lock down, lots of jobs lost “temporally”they say, like mine..and nobody knows what is coming next… it feels like a black mirror episode or a dystopian movie. We´ll see.
We need to stay positive and trust in the goodness of humanity, stop and think on how we want to live, the importance of public health services and also how everybody is important to make society work, cashiers, truck drivers, street cleaners… total shitstorm but we have to stay positive.
The band started in 2017, formed by four friends, some of them ex members of well known bands from the Alicante underground scene like El Eje del Mal or Vaquero Caballo. After one year locked up in their practice room honing their sound, they played their first show was in February of 2018. Since then the band has played a lot of local shows and also around Spain, displaying their energetic live set in some of the most iconic venues of the Spanish underground circuit (such as Zaragoza´s Arrebato, Madrid´s La Faena II, Don Benito´s Rincon Pio Sound, Benicarló´s Plug in the Gear) sharing stage with well-established bands like KLS, DobleCapa, L´Hereu Escampa, Medicina…
Without a doubt, “Asma, corte, afonía, pisotón” is CEMÉNTERI´s best recording to date, strengthening all the qualities shown in prior releases, polishing off the rough edges and showing a new multifaceted personality of the band.
The band is having a release party show on the 30th of May in their hometown and more dates to be announced.
