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AFTER YEARS OF SILENCE, PURA MANÍA MAKE A SURPRISE RETURN!
The band shares members between Vancouver, Canada, and Ciudad de Mexico. Despite the distance and borders between them, Pura Manía breaks through with their signature brand of upbeat, anthemic punk, picking up right where their previous LP left off.
Three new singalong songs taking influence from 80s punk from Spain to Rikk Agnew's "All By Myself" 12" as well as classic Oi!, and a curveball Screamers cover that the band manages to make their own.
In the spirit of DIY punk and international punk solidarity, this is a split release between CV Records (Mexico) and Discos Peligrosos (Japan). Covers screen printed in Mexico.
Our take: Here at Sorry State, we were huge fans of Pura Manía’s first three records: the two 7”s they released in 2014 and their 2017 album, Cerebros Punk. When I heard Pura Manía was returning with a new record, I was excited, but also a little nervous. The world has changed in the ten years since Pura Manía’s first records came out, and more bands are mashing up post-punk and anthemic street punk / oi!… Home Front, for instance, has become one of the biggest bands in the underground with a sound based on a similar set of influences. After listening to Extraños Casos De La Vida Real, though, I realize I shouldn’t have worried. While a few people may have caught up to where Pura Manía was in 2014, they’re still several steps ahead of everyone else. And besides, it was never about the sound, it was about the songs, and god damn fucking hell does Pura Manía have songs. At the center of all four songs on Extraños Casos De La Vida Real is a powerful central vocal melody, always anthemic and sing-along-able… these melodies are the reasons Pura Manía’s music is so often compared to classic oi! and Spanish punk, but unlike the bare-bones arrangements favored by oi! bands, Pura Manía builds these songs out into tracks that are like punk symphonies. Besides the central vocal hooks, each song also has several memorable lead guitar and bass lines, and you can tell they put a ton of thought into how all these parts work in concert… take, for instance, the way the lead guitar gracefully steps to the side as the tension-building pre-chorus leads into the chorus payoff in “El Viaje Al Interior Del Cuerpo,” setting up the pins perfectly so the vocalist can knock them down. These are masterpieces of punk songwriting, and I love that this time around Pura Manía is less shy about it, employing clearer, sharper production than their earlier releases and doing clever-ass shit like the musical callback to one of their older songs on the grandiose, later-Damned-esque instrumental intro. Extraños Casos De La Vida Real is just a great fucking record, a phenomenal piece of craftsmanship that seems determined not just to imitate, but to equal (and perhaps even best) the life-changing records that influenced it. This is the reason we are punks, folks, because our scene can produce bands and records like this.