Como brillaba tu alma

That song that opens Este fuerte viento que sopla doesn’t go unnoticed: it sounds like a sunset on the coast with the wind hitting your face, but also like that moment when a melody grabs you and won’t let go. It’s not just the rhythm — that sway between urgency and relaxation — but how Emiliano Brancciari’s voice balances between a whisper and a shout, as if he’s telling something that hurts but can’t be silenced. Mateo Moreno’s bass sets the pulse with precision that never wavers, even when Gonzalo Castex’s percussion and the brass of Martín Gil and Denis Ramos add that murga feel that shatters any idea that Uruguayan rock sounds like the same old thing.

They recorded it in Santiago de Chile in March 2002, except for Clara, which was captured in Montevideo a month later. The process was intense: they rehearsed in two different places, mixed at Clio with Joaquín García and Mariano Pavéz, and when the album came out, they premiered it at Montevideo’s Teatro de Verano. By then, the band had already shed that “bad” name they started with and moved between influences ranging from The Beatles to the stickiest local rhythms. The song itself lasts 4:09, but in those minutes, there’s more depth than it seems: the ska that peeks through, the reggae that relaxes, and those lyrics that need no frills to pack a punch.