Nossas Vidas

The first time I heard Nossas Vidas, I was hooked by that riff that repeats like an echo between the verses, as if the song couldn’t decide whether to leave or stay. It’s not a sticky chorus, but something more organic: a play of tensions where Carlos Maltz’s drums set the pace with a precision that doesn’t sound rehearsed, but rather like something that had been brewing for years. The bass of Humberto Gessinger —which in this album was still not his main instrument— intertwines with the guitars of Carlos Stein in a dialogue that doesn’t seek resolution, but exploration. Recorded in just four weeks at RCA Studios in São Paulo, the song breathes with the urgency of someone who has no time for perfection, only to capture the moment.

This track is part of Longe Demais Das Capitais, the album that Engenheiros do Hawaii released in October 1986 with a sound that still smelled of ska and reggae, far from the rawer rock that would later define them. It was their only album recorded with the original lineup, before Marcelo Pitz left the bass in 1987 to make way for Augusto Licks. The band had already been playing in Porto Alegre since 1984, but it was here where they found a rare balance: lyrics that questioned without preaching and melodies that sounded like the future, even if the album had no massive ambitions. Nossas Vidas lasts just over three minutes, but in that time, more questions fit than answers, as if each note were a question thrown into the air.