New Mexico is band that resides in San Diego, California, comprised of former Apes of Wrath members Rob Kent, Jake Bankhead, Dustin Elliott who premiere their dominance asserting new single, “Alpha Male”. Having given early indications of their post-punk beginnings, interests and leanings on 2010's Have You Met My Friend?; the forthcoming disc Malpaís further traverses the volcanic and xeric soundscapes of electric bass and guitar chemistries. The new disc presents the band's newfound recording method of using Otari 16-track one-inch tape, with the result of a richer pop punk foundation white frontman Rob steers the van into the dystopian fray of super power entities, egos, and questions of gender superiority complexes in a post-gender reading world.
The rumbling bassline of “Alpha Male” starts up like a well serviced El Camino with a commencing percussive sidewinder's desert rattle. A keyboard minor key rings out before the synthesizers take a background seat to the lip biting beat and mean guitars to frame the lyrical woe. “Too many years I try, to slice a bitter lime, born again, born again”. Breaking through years of frustrations, Kent proclaims a metamorphosis of the band's sound developments and presentation as alpha-godheads of their minor chord universe of righteous self-belief.
This is not to say that New Mexico are unselfconscious in their bold stated superman-supremacies. The headedness and a side nod toast to stubborn behaviors they confess with, “there's a hole in my head, that you fill with cement” while giving J. D. Salinger a shout out, “A Catcher in the Rye, my pitch is high and tight”, keeping both their confidence and modern popular canons close and intact.
In a post-patriarchal world, New Mexico seek the kind of father knows best wisdom with the lyrical refrain of, “daddy said pick a winner”. This lends a reading of the song's decree to choose or create your own chief destiny, where out of the bitterness of slicing citrus you can pick yourself to be the winning champion in the game. This can be seen in the band's giant step ambitions from taking the stripped down rhthmic DIY ethos established with Have You Met My Friend? to laying a new fatherhood claim of the alpha and omega indie landforms found on the upcoming Malpaís full-length.
The “Alpha Male” chant presents a primordial rite of gender assertion as if New Mexico lay claim to this self-appointed central title all along. Not that there is any mud slinging offense to opposing “alpha female” gender supremacy claims, but the band takes a post-deconstructionist, post-modern, post-whatever, but namely a post-gender reading of the title. On the track's point of no return blaze of glory and final ignition blast; “Alpha Male” is uttered 20 times to the point where it's prior attributed signifiers become thrown to the San Diego group's chugging destruction of constructural disambiguations.
New Mexico's self-released album Malpaís will be available April 23 via Bandcamp.
