La Ley

Standard-bearers of independent Latin American rock, Chile's La Ley took their first steps thanks to Andrés Bobe, a guitarist passionate about European new wave, both British and Spanish: the band's name was in fact inspired by the title of the album "La ley del desierto, la ley del mar" by Madrid's Radio Futura. Charismatic singer Beto Cuevas joined in 1989: it's worth noting that the two musicians met in Chile in the late 1980s, after both their families had been forced into exile following Pinochet's coup. Bobe's father, in particular, had been the personal driver of elected president Salvador Allende, while Cuevas had lived mainly between Venezuela and Canada — life experiences that, as we'll see, would later prove useful to him in his artistic career as well.

In 1990, the lineup, completed by Luciano Rojas on bass, Mauricio Calverías on drums and Rodrigo Aboitiz on keyboards, debuted with the album "Desiertos", released through an EMI sub-label, Fúsion, run by the important local producer Carlos Fonseca. The latter, however, soon stopped following La Ley, being more interested in the already-established Los Prisioneros, but this didn't hinder the band's growth: quite the opposite, as they achieved solid success with their second record, "Doble opuesto", markedly influenced by new wave.

The real breakthrough, however, came with their fourth album, "Invisible", released in July 1995 and now a classic of rock music across Latin America. The record's genesis was marked by a period of great, at times dramatic, change. Keyboardist Aboitiz returned to the fold after a few years away, but the band tragically lost its founding leader: Andrés Bobe died in a car accident in April 1994, at just thirty-two. Having processed the shock as best they could, Beto Cuevas and his bandmates pressed on and recruited new guitarist Pedro Frugone, a decisive element in shaping the sound of a record that would go on to sell around a million copies across Latin America, entering the pantheon of the continent's legends alongside heavyweights like Soda Stereo, Caifanes, Los Prisioneros and others.

"Invisible" retains the Chilean band's new wave roots but decisively expands them with elements borrowed from gothic and alternative rock. The lead single "El duelo", one of the last tracks co-written by Bobe along with "Animal", "R&R" and "1-800 Dual", is an excellent calling card in this respect. The double-time drum pattern — the backbone of countless Motown, soul, rock and indie songs — combined with electric guitar arpeggios processed through delay and reverb, and songwriting built to explode into an arena-ready chorus, shows affinities with "Persiana Americana", the huge Soda Stereo hit released in 1988. There are many similarities, but even more differences: as steeped as "Persiana Americana" is in new wave sounds and aesthetics, "El duelo" sits at the crossroads of various strands of 1990s independent rock; in just over three minutes you can hear touches of techno (the synthesizer intro), flamenco, alternative rock, and gothic rock.

The following single "Día cero" is probably one of the most distinctive songs of the decade: the sound of the opening orchestra hit brings to mind a late-80s/early-90s new jack swing track more than an alternative rock song. As further proof of a broad range of influences, bass and drums lay down a near-funk pattern, albeit filtered through sounds and moods akin to alternative rock of that era. Pedro Frugone plays a hypnotic winding line that (aside from the minor pentatonic scale) avoids every possible guitar riff cliché: the phrase unfolds on high notes with a sound that's anything but imposing — muffled, dark-toned, and decidedly at odds with the aesthetic of the period, which was heavily focused on abrasive, powerful guitars. Ethereal pads not far removed from ambient music enrich the choral refrain. Beto Cuevas's voice can express itself at its best here, deep and sighing in the verses, melodramatic and full-chested in the chorus.

"Animal" shows how the album's shifted artistic direction was already clear even before Bobe's death: it's a sprawling song, in keeping with a style quite fashionable in both grunge circles and British/European independent rock of the time. The entire verse rests on an electric guitar ostinato arpeggiating the notes E, G-sharp and A, while drums and bass sustain a fairly slow groove throughout the song. In the chorus, a heavily distorted guitar delivers a hard blues riff on the E minor pentatonic scale, shifting the mood away from the E major harmony of the verse. After the second chorus, another theme is introduced, evolving from the E minor pentatonic towards a chord progression rooted in A minor. The return to E major in the verse is handled with real class and speaks to the band's songwriting pedigree.

The third single, "Hombre", offers further proof of the band's refinement and inspiration as songwriters. Particularly admirable from a harmonic standpoint is the chorus: after a verse built on an A minor riff, it stays within the key by moving to F major before continuing towards the major chords of C and G, yet harmony and melody are left suspended by the strategic use of B minor as the progression's final chord. This device — over which the vocal line need only lean into the semitone descent between the last two chords — is the key to a chorus that could potentially loop forever.

There's no shortage of harder, more aggressive-sounding songs: "R&R" (with English lyrics), for instance, is rock'n'roll updated for the era of harder alternative rock, laced with a glam undertone that evokes a Marc Bolan transplanted into 1990s Chile. "El Rey", in other hands, could almost pass for a Rage Against the Machine-style crossover track: just listen to the particularly saturated guitar riff and the funk-rock drive of the verses to be convinced. The end result doesn't feel like a stylistic departure from the rest of the album, thanks to the tonal and mixing choices, Cuevas's interpretive commitment, and the horn-like keyboard flourishes in the disco-tinged chorus.

Keyboardist Aboitiz's contribution is crucial to building the sound of "Invisible", one unique not just within the South American rock landscape: take, for example, his part in the title track at the 0:50 mark, whose long-decay, obsessively-treated delay sound meshes perfectly with the effects used on the electric guitars, or the array of different tones deployed on "Fausto", a singular song in its own right, which alternates lounge-music moods with an alternative-dance beat.

The album also offers a couple of ballads steeped in decadent spleen, where Cuevas takes centre stage, showing off both his interpretive talent and his polyglot linguistic skills. His time in Québec allowed him to sing in both French and English, besides his native Spanish of course, with results that are nothing short of astonishingly natural. On "Deuxieme fois", for instance, he displays a falsetto so precise and full in its delivery that for a moment it feels like listening to a collaboration with a French female singer. Indeed, the nocturnal backing track echoes certain ballads by a mature Françoise Hardy or by Mylène Farmer (unwittingly, perhaps?). Also worth noting is the solo, where sound experiments on the electric guitar make it seem almost like a synthesizer.

"The corridor", sung in English, is a spectral piano ballad with admirable string touches (both synthesized and real) and sparse hints of classical guitar. It's a song that takes its time, giving space to the instrumental sections and allowing a climax to build gradually within the writing. It could be described as a kind of alternative-rock torch song, one that fears no comparison with the more celebrated English-speaking models of the era.

The remaining tracks, "Cielo Market" and "1-800 Dual", both chosen as singles, offer further points of interest. The former is the album's jangle-pop moment: a crystalline acoustic guitar arpeggio sets up the intro, only to be interrupted by a distorted electric guitar (though not overly loaded with fuzz or saturation) that immediately makes clear the song's tone isn't one-dimensional, with the mood shifting between more ethereal and more energetic textures, especially in the choruses. The verses feature a syncopated, disco-inflected bassline, practically worthy of a new romantic band. In the second song, the drum and bass sounds catapult things straight into ambient-house territory. The overall mood is both dreamlike and dark, and the structure is also distinctive, lacking a proper chorus. The minimalist guitar arrangements stand out, initially limited mostly to marking chords with simple downward strums or harmonics, before growing more dynamic and arriving at delicate high-note arpeggios that lead into the song's first ending. The true coda then brings in, gently but rather unexpectedly, an ambient pad, closing the album on an enigmatic note.

Cuevas's lyrics are in keeping with the leaden, decadent mood of most of the record. They range from a depiction of tormented, suffering love in "El duelo" ("With a tear of faith upon your skin/ I forgot the crack your love left in me/ But that bull-like instinct of your being/ forced me to whip you tenderly/ Without pain there is no happiness/ Without love"), to existential doubts about being in the world and relating to others in "Día cero" ("Strangers talk about who I was/ They pretend to give me courage without knowing anything/ There's no need and I wouldn't want to cry to be this way/ My amnesia tells me nothing more/ Than that feeling of anxiety/ On that long road/ That once saw me walking/ That blind wound was born/ That today has erased my yesterday"). This poetic, image-rich style, attentive to expressing concepts of different natures through a rigorous focus on literary craft, finds numerous examples throughout the tracklist: among the many, one could cite the romantic tension of "Animal" ("Your love's eye is about to close/ And I don't know if I happen to wake again/ I'll let myself be seized by the old sun's yearning/ Beneath the cloak of a little self-pity to believe/ That the cries drowning this dawn will make me sprout"), the satirical portrait of a humanity thirsty for power in "Hombre" ("You discovered fire/ To make your life easier/ And now you use it to lead/ War marches/ Deranged abuse of power/ Your foolish way of playing/ Where is it heading?/ Towards a world out of control/ To your own detriment"), or the elegy to sexual freedom of expression in "1-800 Dual" ("Feminine men in a bar/ Looking for masculine women/ Willing to play along/ They perform a ritual and watch false personalities/ emerge/ disguised as their identity").

Although the Spanish market has remained largely impervious to La Ley (a fairly common fate for many Latin American rock bands, in fact), success would continue to smile on both the Chilean band over the years (their "Mtv Unplugged" was a huge commercial hit and another local classic) and on Beto Cuevas, who from 2000 onward would pursue a successful solo career.

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03/03/2024