Album of the Week: Sex Sex Sex – Somos Problema (Cintas)

I first heard Sex Sex Sex thanks to the owner of Discos Mono, a record store in Mexico City. I left the store with three of his recommendations: Hangover Affair by She Killed in Ecstasy, Obscure Daze by Sunset Images, and the Crisis EP by Sex Sex Sex. I couldn’t wait to get home and listen to these new records. When I started up the Crisis EP, something that I realized while in CDMX was further confirmed for me: rock ’n’ roll is alive and well in Mexico. That epiphany led us to put together not one but two shows on the vibrant scene there.

Of course, when I saw Sex Sex Sex had a new release, Somos Problema (which, as far as I can tell, based on the translation of a Facebook post, seems to have been recovered after having been lost for a few years), I had to check it out! And I was delighted to find that my anticipation was rewarded with a 12-track record that delivers nonstop garage-punk energy.

At first listen it’s clear this record can hold its own against any number of cross-genre classics. There’s the ragged aggression of The Germs, and the rocket-fuel psych-rock of The Stooges’ Raw Power. The Dirtbombs’ garage-revival shows up in the band’s propulsive backbeats, and the 13th Floor Elevators’ psychedelic textures warp the band’s punk-rock riffs. However, the record doesn’t sound like a merehat-tip to the music of bands past. The instrumental track “Muerterrey,” for instance, feels longer than its two-and-a-half minute run time as the band seems to distill the entirety of a six-minute heavy psych excursion into a punk rock demi-glace. Six tracks later, on “Ritual,” we get that six-minute long psychedelic garage-punk jam. Perhaps, in that vein, the modern blend of garage-punk and psychedelic rock captured by Sex Sex Sex has more in common with Open Your Heart-era The Men. Rock ‘n’ roll might have saved Sex Sex Sex’s soul, as professed on track six, but their latest release certainly soothed my rock ’n’ roll heart.