Album Review

Binario – Binario

• 31st Oct 2008

Binario take us on a breathless ride through the light heart and dark underbelly of Rio’s mean streets and glorious beaches. This is the sound of new Brazil.

Binario bring the sound of Rio’s underground to their self titled debut with rhythmically rich and sonically expansive tracks full of intrigue and originality. A seven strong gang, Binario have captured their unique mix of psychedelia, guitar fuzz, electronica and tripped out space funk. Recreating the passion of their wild live shows, where the gear is wired to car batteries to blast their illicit grooves to Rio’s beaches, Binario’s layered sound mixes brooding instrumentals with futuristic freak outs and Portuguese scat vocals.

The collective have created an album sounding like nothing you have ever heard – the two drummers creating dense grooves for the swirling guitars and synths to twist around. The foreboding instrumental opener ‘Funeral’ veers closer to the dark underworld of heavy rock than the sun drenched bossa beaches of Rio with Zepplin-esque swirling stadium guitars, crashing symbols and metronomic bass lines. An epic opener that seamlessly flows in to ‘Amor Liquido’ where lead vocal Lucas Vasconcellos brings his battle ready, rhythmical rapping in to a futuristic soundscape filled with paranoid synth bleeps and bounding guitars.

The album has a restless, driven and global quality – rare in the traditions of laid back Brazilian vibes. Constantly pushing instrumental and electro sample boundaries and interspersed with powerful bursts ‘Binario’ bends your mind towards a climax. Standouts come thick at the back end of ‘Binario’ adding further to the live and improvised feel and providing a three-track encore to what comes before. With a truly addictive warped electro hook ‘Vamanda’ is the feel good track of this debut long-player, which comes crashing to a glorious close. ‘DDP’ is a burning, restless electro improv coming in complete with trademark-warped guitars. ‘E Ai Gelara Voltei’ closes up with a wall of crunching bass and soaring guitars, suddenly stopping and demanding a repeat from start.

Check out their incredible live performances via this Youtube link:
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