Metro Nome
By Huáscar Robles

Enter the Haggis, “Gutter Anthems”

With “Gutter Anthems,” Enter the Haggis were able to put into words and music the collective frustrations and madness streaming from a tumultuous world after the sub-prime mortgage implosion. Power chords carry angst and speed, but fiddles and whistles remind of hope and better days.

Overall, ETH's new album plays like an epic prog rock concert blared at the heart of the Irish countryside. The band, still true to its Celtic via Canada roots, adds endearing fiddles and bagpipe melodies with piercing metal guitars. The pop base that keeps them grounded makes this album very listenable, despite its angry moniker.

The song “The Litter and the Leaves” celebrates youth and revelry with swaying melodies about waking up drunk and happy. It slows down and picks up feeling violent yet patriotic, like the aftermath of a European soccer match.

The operatic musical narratives of these songs echo Meat Loaf. These anthems can last up to six minutes with orchestral endings of violins and bass drums that shake to the core. Lower the volume to listen to “Did You Call Me Albatross?”

The fiddle is amplified, layered and accentuated with a deafening bass drum. This is what the battle of Trafalgar might have sounded like. An impressive sound, considering it comes from four instrumentalists and a drum player.

As in traditional popular Celtic songs, ETH's narrative lyrics tell stories of endless skies and bleeding hearts. “Passing the streets alive without breezing/I'm lost in the city again/without a purpose, I can't believe in anything,” singer Trevor Lewington croons in a raspy, transparent voice, extolling the pathos that brought about these emotionally charged songs.

The songs also inspire hope. After all, these swaying melodies are all about camaraderie and beer drinking, and celebration of nationhood.

ETH interprets other genres with the respect they would their own music. In “Suburban Plains,” they beautifully evoke an African landscape. The organic, offbeat rhythm and sweet whistle transport the listener to an afternoon in Mali , underpinned with throaty vocal harmonies and Saharan blues guitar stylings.

Other bright tunes are “The Ghost of Calico,” a speedy country tune, and “Lights and Cars,” an uplifting song, with lots of major chords and bagpipe action.

The album ends on an intelligent note with “Broken Line.” This tune blasts energetic percussion with elegant piano and hollow vocal harmonies. “Off to the west you can feel it coming/ I'll fix the old vein for a river of power/ carefully turning the Earth into wasteland/ thousands of years disappear in an hour,” growls Lewington, reminding us that gutter, grim and mayhem can be gorgeously made into music with the right imagination, talent and grain alcohol.

Alex Ubago, “Calle Ilusión”

It's not a whisper, but the air escaping in his gentle voice that render his songs so they sound like lullabies for the broken hearted. When he sings “Ya no me llamas al teléfono/ es la señal que todo acabó,” in “Me arrepiento,” he's there, knelt before his lover, looking for signs of forgiveness in her eyes.

This intensity characteristic of Alex Ubago's magical pop returns in his fourth studio album, “Calle ilusión,” wrapped in carefully orchestrated rock and dub, sounding more like his Donostian hero Mikel Erentxun.

Erentxun was born in Venezuela , and like Ubago lived his life in the Basque city of San Sebastián also known as Donostia in northern Spain . A city of deep azure shores and rolling hills, San Sebastián probably influences the depictive lyricism the two artists share.

In “Amarrado a ti,” Ubago is “tied” (the word for amarrado in Spanish) to his woman as a boat is to the shore, evoking images from San Sebastián's port or La Concha Bay. His rock mimics the rock Latino aesthetics that made Erentxun, Miguel Bosé and other Spanish rockers so successful: basic drums and snare, crisp electric guitar, slight synth and heart-on-your-sleeve poetry.

Musical director Cachorro López crafted Ubago's formula, lowering the instruments, letting the crooner's mystical voice float above, like foam over the sea water. This helps make raucous rock songs like “ Amsterdam ” so listenable.

Ubago's strength lies in his ballads, but in the first single “Me arrepiento” the baby-faced singer shuns depictive lyrics in favor of awkward confessionals. In “20 horas de nada” and “Cerca de mi” Ubago flaunts his signature style with uh-oh bridges, elongated notes and symbolic lyrics that poignantly describe one single moment of pain. The ballad to watch out for is “No estás sola.” “¿Quién te desdibujó/y te redujo a nada?” Ubago sings, speaking directly to a wounded heart, his words ebbing like a musical serum.

Other highlights include “Calle ilusión” and “Ciudad despierta” whose rock and dub rhythms are underpinned with artful arrangements and intermittent guitar solos. Ubago flirts with R&B in “Walking Away,” a collaboration with British pop star Craig Davis that is surprisingly pleasant.