As Mercenarias – O Comeco Do Fim Do Mundo (Soul Jazz)
Excellent 80s post punk from Brazil. Half the time the group was all women. Most tracks not in English. Most songs are simple and don’t bring much new to post punk, even at the time, but like punk, the energy caries a lot of the tracks. In the end there is more punk than post.
1. Driving simple guitar riff and urgent vocals that are way up front.
**2. Repetitive in a good way, like a police car siren. Punk, with tradeoff vocals, and catchy. Short.
3. Slow, plodding.
4. New wave bass that’s up front, simple quiet guitar, and very pop.
**5. Quick, tight, and a nice guitar riff. Excellent.
**6. Poppy and gothy with prominent bass.
7. Goth guitar intro into urgent sound.
8. Subdued, reverb, backing female vocals.
9. Doesn’t hold together with it’s odd pace and pasted together sections.
10. Punk, with gang backing vocals during the chorus. Vocals way up front. Like a female THE CLASH.
**11. Quieter, prominent bass, effects on the vocals. The longest track.
12. Upbeat and poppy.
13. Guitar starts out more distorted than on any other track.
14. Poppy.
15. Multiple vocalists and effects on the vocals. More bass than guitar.
**16. NYC no wave sound. Quirky, call and response vocals.
Good stuff. -mph