ULISES LIMA / SHONEN BAT - Split LP

Ulises Lima play the kind of emo that is right up my street so this split immediately grabbed my attention. They have a strong sense of melody and the guitar sound and urgency in the vocals always does it for me. Bleakness reigns in the lyrics too and the whole thing isnt a million miles away from the UK emo sound from back in the 90s. I had their LP down as one of last years finest and this set of 4 songs is even tighter than that record. The last song Shadows is absolutely brilliant - it twinkles it teeters and teeters and things threaten to fall apart but just about hold together. This week I would definitely say its in my top ten songs of the year. Shonen Bat are new to me. Like Ulises Lima they also hail from Spain but play a more unusual style of emo. The vocals are lighter and drift a little over the more twiddly guitar sound. Its not that twiddly though and is pretty good - nice and downbeat even twinkly at times. The guitars have a tendency to linger on notes too and theres a hint of the hypnotic about these four tracks. They have a whole bunch of stuff already on their Bandcamp so if you like this then youre in luck. One band that is nailing it right now and another interesting new one to find a bit more about - good enough for me!