Los Chicos - Never Is Too Much (2024)

The end of the year, the end-of-the-world garage-rock party band Los Chicos return with a brand new album.

The recipe for Los Chicos is simple, as one of their many their off-shoots Greasy & Grizzly sang, “The cheapest wine and the cheapest coke make the best calimocho.” They certainly do and Los Chicos know full well that their blend of riotous country-infused garage-rock is one best served in a pint glass over ice. Not too much though mind! News of new albums by the Spanish quintet is always welcome, ever since my first piece for Louder Than War covering their 2013 album, Age Of Stupidity.

On their new album, they are a little bit older, a lot wiser, but by no means ready to hang up their boots as they fly through twelve cracking tracks. This time, under the guidance of Spanish legend Mike Mariconda on production duties, they have really captured the energy they transmit live. The guitars of dual-twin attacking Antonio and Gerardo Urchaga (FOLC Records’ head honchos themselves) crunch and drive right from the outset on recent single Another Night In Eden, the solo, breaking and rallying, cries out like it truly deserves. Rafa Suñen’s vocals are pushed to the fore, like a preacher from the pit, while the tighter-than-a-gnat’s-ass rhythm section of drummer Ral Garcia and bassist Guillermo Casanova ensure that things stay just on the right side of out-of-control chaos. The way the five play off each other comes out early on the rollicking For A While, an early highlight.

One of the benefits of being some of the movers of the Spanish garage-rock underground is the roster of friends that you can call on. On the Saints-like Approaching Nowhere, a song based on photographer Jeff Brouws’ book of the same name, we hear MFC Chicken’s Spencer Evoy adding some great sax parts. No stranger to the garage scene, and a member of the FOLC family, he knows just what and when to give it his all. After only three tracks it’s clear that Never Is Too Much is shaping up to be the best Los Chicos’ record yet.

Their riotous country-garage chops come out, as they always will, on tracks like Shotgun House and the wonderful Going To Stay, the latter also sounding like it could be a lost Lookout! Records classic, while Exiled Between The Cracks rollicks along in the style of the Urchaga brothers’ hero Wilko Johnson. You only have to look at the cover of 2018 album, By Medical Prescription, to see what Johnson and Dr Feelgood mean to the band.

But what makes this album all the stronger is the pathos and thought put into the lyrics. There may still be odes to parties that stretch long into the early hours, and My Saturday Night could be one of their best yet, but the self-deferential “we look like shit” of old has gone. Nowhere is it clearer than on the album’s closer, Reckless Nights, a song of friendship, of support, of carrying each other through the harder times. A beautiful close to a fantastic record, one that really captures the spirit of Los Chicos, true legends of the Spanish underground.