Timoti La Moto Casco

Sometimes it pays to sweep the inbox a few times. This year’s been heavy on the releases and there’s far too much room for the good ones to get lost between the cracks and crevices of possible listening time. Case in point, longtime faves Halfshell Records offered up this excellent record from Guadalajara’s Timoti La Moto Casco last summer, and I’m kicking myself for just getting to it now. The band chews into a few favorite genre themes of late, but they spit ’em back out with a seismic quake that keeps them far from the worn end of the nostalgia pool. Propelled by an unwavering, insistent throb that’s gonna lock limbs with the Krautrock fans out there, the record churns with the best of ’em. Yet, the band has a habit of swapping their Teutonic turbulence with a baggy bounce, flirting with Britpop in a way that only Young Guv’s made feel fresh this year. With a heavy pump in the rhythm trunk, the band proceeds to lacquer the record with a sound that’s neither gripping the dance and strum of Manchester nor the prog swirl of Berlin.

Instead, the band’s go-to glaze on the top of the record is a mix of shoegaze aesthetics and radio deep grunge. They’re often apt to let the vocals get lost in the haze. The guitars hit the listener like a maelstrom, but it’s not just bluster, there’s hooks in haze. Like Swevedriver jamming with Spacehog or earlly Foos getting locked into a NEU phase, the record takes its corners with little regard for safety or convention. Mud it, machine it, glaze it, roll it in gravel and fix it up in a fog of hushed Spanish; that seems to be the MO. The crunch gives way to rhythmic breakdowns that lap at the ’90s dance itch. The record stitches the seams together like the ‘shape of ‘Gaze to come. It’s an ambitious record, that by all accounts shouldn’t work on paper, but that burrows under the skin with surprising skill and an aptitude for inspiring repeat listens.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.