Ciudad – Follow the Leader (2012)

The trajectory Ciudad took from Happy Bear to Follow the Leader, isn’t quite slanted and enchanted turning into bright corners until terror twilight comes in. See, Pavement references Ella Fitzgerald, not Helmet; Ciudad, on the other hand, echoes Korn, the fathers-in-denial of the bastard sub-genre called Nu Metal. Maybe they’re more like The Dead Milkmen, who ditches the punk-rock girl after they found the secret of life. But you get the drift—they started as ramshackle crew of awkward geeks and became more and more mellowed out with each release. But the problem isn’t really mellowing out—their previous effort, the somewhat Bandwagonesque-esque Bring Your Friends, is mellower, but still better. As far as Spiral Stairs knows, Stephen Malkmus never stopped being fun even when the lyrics start to reveal their meaning (i.e., The Hook, Jenny & The Ess-Dog). I guess it’s them losing touch with their younger crazier selves, their nonsense lyrics, the geeky ball-busting, fuzz face-melting, Corina Turina-shouting. It’s the crude appeal of their earlier stuff, the band dynamics, the warmth—all of which are miserably missing here.