Mesa Cosa make balls-out, garage-y punk rock. YaYa Brouhaha – the band’s long-playing debut – is a filthy piece of work. The Melbournians assume a total disregard for finesse, but that doesn’t mean there’s a skills deficiency. Each of YaYa Brouhaha’s ten tracks comes out fast and hits hard, but lean in a little closer and you’ll discover it’s lined with clever chord runs and a bounty of memorable gang vocals. The record’s opening number Why Yo sets the stage, shoving bottles down the gullet and diving into a fit of accelerated mania. As the album progresses, this unruly pulse continues gathering intensity to the point of explosion. It’s very quickly made clear Mesa Cosa aren’t the types to pause a recording just because one of their several string-slingers falls out of tune or someone misses a rhythmic accent.
The band’s frontman Pablo Alvarado is a Mexico City transplant and he doesn’t keep his heritage a secret. Take for instance tracks such as Satanas,which in many respects is a rampaging Cramps-meets-Minor Threat number. Only it’s spiked with more than a touch of cocaine-addled Latino flavour. The same goes for Bruja,where Alvarado’s frenzied vocals verge on psychotic. The relatively mild-mannered, yet ecstatic, YaYaYaYa comes next, demanding idleness be pushed aside and everyone jump into the mess. Towards its conclusion, YaYa Brouhaha pulls a major left turn in the form of freakish six-minute episode, Bad Blood. It’s a frightful embodiment of a hangover from hell, snarling into view and planting a knife into your brains tender bits. There’s no comfort here, only a fiendish indictment for reinless indiscretion.
Such dynamic contrasts and aesthetic-splicing push this LP well beyond being a mere lark. YaYa Brouhaha is captivating and unpredictable, akin to the brain scramble induced by throwing back another shot after already having one shot too many. Other than on the amusing and rivalry-perpetuating Sydney, the lyrics (sung in both English and Spanish) aren’t easily discernible. This isn’t a big deal, however, as the band’s attitude is what’s centrally significant. Look out, here come Mesa Cosa ready to whip you in the face, grin deliriously and furnish your belly with towers of beer.
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
Best Track: Bad Blood
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: MINOR THREAT, REBEL’D PUNK, PISSED JEANS
In A Word: Unrighteous
