Anamores

Earlier in the year, this Puerto Rican singer, drummer and social activist released a righteously indignant single about, she explained, ‘the pressures put upon you by society.’ ‘No Me da la Fokin’ Gana’ promised much for the album to come. Anamores certainly shares the single's energetic charge. Ani Cordero has drummed on tour for the likes of Os Mutantes and was a founding member of the celebrated Mexican rock group Pistolera in the early noughties. On the catchy ‘Eres Tu’, ‘Se Acabo’ and ‘Firestarter’, pretty much throughout in fact, the hand- and kit-drumming are thunderous, the rhythms betraying the influence of her native bomba and plena traditions. These are evident, too, in the more restrained, sweetly sung ‘Cancion de Tuca’. Love for our ancestors is just one of the aspects of love that she writes about on what was conceived as a ‘bilingual concept album.’ The following track is one that is roughly half in English, but ‘Good’ it isn't really. There are other moments – like ‘Troublemaker’, for instance – that float off into the shallow end. Nevertheless, like Eljuri, another bilingual powerhouse (whose Reflexión was reviewed in November 2022, #182), she generally walks with assurance and attitude the line between indie-fluff and something artistically more substantial.