Corazones Muertos, or The Deadhearts, show that it doesn’t matter what language you’re singing in, righteous, baptismal Rock’n’Roll will always flow through and find the cobra-fanged followers of faith and fuck-ups. Like Lords-era Brian James they pace their songs with arpeggios, allowing space to seep in in the form of a sultry, dusty air. And it’s the kind of air that vocalist Joe’s been inhaling all his life for his brazen, barrel-chested whisky soured stubble-larynxed voice pouring forth tales of bravado and bittersweet black-eyed bottled blues, that also digs up bones left by The Dogs D’Amour in days of old, especially with their considered, acoustic led approach and slithery, expressive lead a la Jo Dog. On songs like ‘Cuantas Veces’ (‘As Many Times’, apparently) and ‘En El Altar’ they’re as graceful as a soft swirl of sand blown on a desert breeze, and on others such as ‘Sucio Estilo’ (‘Dirty Style’) they bite like the wind’s sweeping that sand up into a stormcloud. ‘Mala Suerte’ (‘Bad Luck’) gets bare-chested and tequila-throated in such a manner it seems Hanoi missed every party ever and spent their hound-dogging heyday as wilting wallflowers whereas, appropriately, ‘Vagabunda’ rolls along like a wagon train of donkeys negotiating a high mountain pass in a Sergio Leone film.

The Deadhearts. Resurrecting Rock’n’Roll. __________________________________________________

-Stu Gibson