Milestones

Caifanes

Name: Caifanes – El silencio
Item: El silencio
Author: Federico Romagnoli

El silencio

1992 (Rca victor)

art-rock, Latin alternative

by Federico Romagnoli

Caifanes were formed in January 1987, when singer and guitarist Saúl Hernández called together three musicians who, like him, moved in Mexico City's countercultural scene: Diego Herrera (keyboards), Salvador "Sabo" Romo (bass) and Alfonso André (drums).

Hernández boasts a biography that seems almost engineered to forge a figure of mythological proportions: born and raised in the Colonia Guerrero, one of the city's most dangerous neighbourhoods, he lost his mother as a child and dropped out of school in 1979, aged fifteen, to play rock music in secret (Mexican authorities had boycotted the genre from 1971, when President Luis Echeverría officially banned it, until 1980, when the National Autonomous University held a festival dedicated to it).

The end of hostilities from police and military forces didn't automatically make rock popular, though: local record labels were still tied to an industry dominated by orchestral ballads and traditional music, decidedly more reassuring for a rather conservative ruling class.

In the early years, then, it was rock from Spain, already well established, that took advantage of the fledgling Mexican market, while local bands were given no chance at all. Things began to change gradually from 1984, the year "Simplemente" by El Tri came out, the first hit of the reborn movement, but growth was slow and difficult: the article "Homegrown Mexican Rock Thrives Against The Odds", published by Billboard in October 1992, reported that of the more than one hundred rock records released in Mexico the previous year, only seven were distributed by the so-called major.

Caifanes managed to break into this narrow circle of the chosen few, though not without resistance: before signing with RCA, they were turned down by CBS because of their look, inspired by British gothic rock, and a famous anecdote has it that, explaining his refusal to sign them, the label's director went so far as to declare: "They look like fags".

That phase didn't last long, however: while the self-titled debut album, from 1988, seemed to suggest a Spanish-language answer to Cure (although it is far more accomplished and complex than such a description might suggest), the band had already shown, with "Caifanes Vol. 2" (1990), that they'd shaken off any cumbersome mentors, developing a shapeshifting sound capable of dreamlike instrumental digressions, hints of traditional Mexican music and a considerable dose of guitar aggression, in line with the emerging alternative rock scene. It's worth noting that a fifth member had joined in the meantime, guitarist Alejandro Marcovich, who many years later, after falling out bitterly with Hernández, would controversially claim sole credit for the band's musical maturation [1].

The second album sold over 200,000 copies within a couple of years, confirming the band's growing popularity. It's against this contradictory backdrop — the sense of being able to rise to the top of the local market, but also the worries and tensions that come with fame — that Caifanes set out to record "El silencio".

So they flew to Lake Geneva, a small town of seven thousand people on the shores of Lake Michigan, to the renowned Royal Recorders studio, used among others by Cheap Trick, Ministry, Skid Row and Queensrÿche. There they were joined by Adrian Belew: admirers of his records with King Crimson, they wanted him as producer [2].

Despite the cold environment in which it was recorded and the guidance of an American musician, the album boasts an even more hybrid sound than its predecessor. Full credit must go to Belew for overseeing the sessions and shaping the quality of the recording without pushing the band toward the stereotypes of English-language rock: on the contrary, the music's regional character is highlighted and blended seamlessly with the latest technological innovations. The result is Caifanes' most original record to date, as well as one of the high points in the history of Latin American music and Spanish-language rock.

The album opens with "Metamorféame", a frenzied rhythm that alternates verses dominated by Herrera's atmospheric keyboards with a chorus of jarring hard rock guitars. The instrumental skill on display from all the members is beyond doubt, but it's Hernández who steals the show, thanks to his evocative, chameleon-like voice, capable one moment of drifting through soft tones and the next of turning harsh, leaping between registers whenever needed.

The metaphorical lyrics go a long way toward explaining the shamanic aura that, according to many fans, surrounds the singer's persona:

The human form is changing,

beneath the stones lie other skins,

the past floats upon the foam,

it spits in the face that gives no answer,

all my sweat is folding in on itself,

soaking strange interiors,

a sheep is killing itself,

a huge monkey is turning white.

Transform me!

“Nubes” introduces the influence of música guapachosa [3], with its Caribbean lilt and the horn section led by Herrera, who shines on saxophone. Marcovich's high bluesy guitar lines keep the rock connection alive, while keyboard and percussion interludes lend an almost new-age tone.

Just as hybrid is “Piedra”, with its jagged rhythm weaving together the pattern syncopation of André's drumming, Romo's ever-shifting bassline, funky-stepping guitars and the grumbling tubas of a banda de viento [4]. Marcovich plays the acoustic guitar solo, while Belew handles the electric one (his only direct contribution as a musician on the record).

Although the author has never confirmed it, the lyrics are usually interpreted as Hernández's lament over his own crack addiction, which in Mexico is nicknamed piedra ("stone").

Stone, let me go, stone, don't twist me any further,

leave me as I am, look how I'm bleeding,

can't you feel me trembling?

You don't care to see me suffer, you've never spoken to me,

how my soul withers, my teeth beg forgiveness,

if I cry out for your help it's because I want you gone.

His voice turns angelic on "Tortuga", gliding over intricate, occasionally faintly dissonant jangle-guitar figures, as he decries the slaughter of sea turtles in Mexico, with several species still at risk of extinction because of unstoppable smuggling (a problem that remains as pressing as ever, nearly thirty years after the song's release). Hernández's artistic sensitivity isn't afraid to expose the wounds tied to his homeland: he mourns not only human suffering but also that of animals and the natural landscape, in an almost animistic web of connections. The figure of the shaman resurfaces once again:

Oh turtle, go to the sea, and leave us and forget us,

oh turtle, go to the open sea, and leave us in this hell.

Night falls, most likely you'll die,

today the sand bears witness to your worst enemy.

"Nos vamos juntos" stands out for its jazzy bass, pulsing electric organ, guitar harmonics and a grand finale of minimalist strings, while "No Dejes Que..." and "Debajo de tu piel", both among the band's best-known songs, are carried by acoustic guitars and piano. These are polished, radio-friendly tracks, sturdy folk-rock anthems unmistakably Latin in flavour, romantic but never saccharine, bearing the now fully crystallized Caifanes trademark.

Toward the end, with “El comunicador” and “Vamos a hacer en silencio”, the band's passion for progressive rock, which had already shown itself two years earlier with "El elefante". Amid shifting moods and tempos – mournful keyboard laments, onomatopoeic electric guitars, rubbery basslines, epic saxophone solos, fractured drumming – Caifanes seem to rise toward the cosmos, taking on an almost mystical aura.

Listening to these passages, it's natural to think of the album cover: a face built from a sequence of three photographs, each representing symbols central to the roots of Mexican culture. At the top, the eyes of a Madonna dating back to the Sixteenth-century Franciscan order, followed by the nose of the Mayan deity Kinich Ahau and the mouth of an Aztec mask.

“El silencio” comes out on May 29, 1992, and meets with a good response: less than five months later, Billboard reports 120,000 copies sold in the Mexican market alone. Most of the sales, however, come from 1994 onward, the year that turns the band into the leading name in Mexican rock. The album thus reaches 350,000 copies (a figure estimated by the fanzine “Evolución jaguar” and confirmed by Marcovich himself).

Since then the band's fame has never wavered – if anything, the internet era seems to have expanded it further: in 2018, Amprofon certified that “El silencio” had surpassed half a million copies sold at home.

Today, factoring in sales across the rest of Spanish-speaking America (where the band isn't as well known as in Mexico but can boast a solid cult following), as well as the digital market and the equivalent streamingfigures, it's reasonable to estimate the album is close to a million copies sold.

Caifanes carried on until 1995, when Hernández and André decided to form the almost equally brilliant Jaguares. In 2011 came the reunioncame in 2011, followed by a well-deserved outpouring of fan support during the tour around Mexico. The band is still active today, although it hasn't released any new albums and its lineup has been reduced to just Hernández, Herrera and André.

Notes:

[1] The relevant post is reproduced post by Marcovich on Facebook.

[2] Belew reportedly kept a fond memory of the experience, calling the album sensational and praising all the musicians involved. Confirming this, in 2005 he would return to collaborate with Hernández on the fifth Jaguares album, "Crónicas de un laberinto".

[3] "The term música guapachosa seems to apply to the Mexican appropriation of Afro-Caribbean or Afro-Colombian music genres (e.g. salsa and cumbia) and carries with it the stigma of the lower social classes, who embraced them during the Sixties and Seventies" (Alejandro L. Madrid, "Nor-tec Rifa!", 2008).

[4] Brass bands typical of various regions of Mexico. Although they originated in the country's south-central regions during the nineteenth century, they soon spread to the north as well. Today the best known to the general public are those from the state of Sinaloa.

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11/07/2021

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Federico Romagnoli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition