Bersuit Vergarabat

BERSUIT VERGARABAT
DE LA CABEZA CON BERSUIT VERGARABAT
UNIVERSAL

The only chance Argentina has of surviving its current hell will originate from the country's mad-as-fuck music groups and their fans. And from this seething underclass, the ablest soldiers are aurally anarchistic octet Bersuit Vergarabat—a band that uses every vulgarity and rhythm imaginable to attack the eternally corrupt Argentine regime—and their psicópatas. They each show music's powerful ability to foment change on the live album De la Cabeza con Bersuit Vergarabat. Recorded last fall in Buenos Aires' legendary Estadio Obras Sanitarias, De la Cabeza is a prime example of the nostalgic ballads, lewd sing-alongs and giddy anti-government rants that make Bersuit one of the Western Hemisphere's most important and inventive bands. Bersuit's live punk/tango/cumbia fission and the stage presence of the simultaneously lascivious and lyrical lead singer Gustavo Cordera make De la Cabeza an outstanding compilation in its own right, but their already amazing repertoire becomes even more scintillating with the help of one of the most pissed-off audiences captured on record. Adoring but angry fans hum each chord, sing all the lyrics, and cheer every time Cordera dedicates a song to the hijo de puta ex-President Carlos Menem or urges them to remember the valiant mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. De la Cabeza includes only one new track (the rest are culled from the badass albums Liberntinaje and Hijos del Culo), but it's the powerful ballad "El Pacto," an inspiring love song that also doubles as commentary on the psychological and musical resiliency of the Argentine nation in the face of endless chaos. (Gustavo Arellano)