Spectreview: Helado Negro – This Is How You Smile

-LIGHT CORAL-

“Todo lo que me falta
Es tú”

Helado Negro’s first record divorced from Asthmatic Kitty radiates love, but not the kind of love you’d commonly find in music of this variety. It’s not tainted, unrequited or reserved; rather, it’s pure and effusive, the kind built from challenge and practice, hammered from hot iron and tempered into armor. Almost a decade into his career, Roberto Lange deeply understands how to create compelling yarns from unassuming fragments, and This Is How You Smile pulses tenderly, bucolically, with warm synths and folk instrumentation. It’s a record that flows unassumingly, even boringly, at first but rewards repeat listens as little details start to pop out. Steel drums find their way into the ethereally steady acoustic guitar in “Sábana de Luz” and the embryonic electronics of “November 7,” while the call-and-response of bright piano and low synths in “Running” cleverly captures the emotional highs of parental devotion. Throughout, Lange’s words, as well as his weavings of Spanish and English lyrics organically like in the sunlit, dusty “País Nublado”, speak to the experience of being an immigrant in America and to the strength that can only come from being constantly challenged by your environment. Whether you have felt that hardship or not doesn’t matter here; by letting the listener in on the unique pleasures found in committed, deep-seated affection, Lange helps to soften the callouses in your grown heart, if only for a moment.

Recommended for new parents (and old lovers).