Omar Rodriguez-Lopez ‘Corazones’ Review: musician mourns his mother’s passing in second of solo efforts.

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Omar Rodriguez-Lopez recent announcement of 12 solo albums for 2016 certainly raised eyebrows. Given his adventurous pedigree, we knew we were in for an unpredictable ride in terms of volume and range of material.

And with Corazones (due out on Ipecac July 29th) the second in the series, we have something diametrically opposed to the stormy art-rock electronica of inaugural release Sworn Virgins.

Click here for my Sworn Virgins review 

Indeed, Corazones is perhaps his most mournful, subdued and restrained effort to date. But that doesn’t mean he’s playing it safe either.

There is a cinematic scope to the album, fitting given it originated as work for a film score. While the movie never materialized, each songs paints a vivid picture, ably enhancing lyrics inspired by the loss of his mother in 2012, as he elaborated on in an interview with Rolling Stone: when working with the director and producer, all the themes that were in the film itself were exactly what I was going through: loss, loss of identity because of such an extreme loss.

Things begin straight and soberly to the point: We Feel The Silence paints a picture of grief, a haunting Spanish guitar ballad with lyrics of loss and an eerie backwards guitar solo drifting in and out like a ghost.

Running Away shifts gears radically: an uptempo number veering into 80’s jangle-pop with 60’s psych thrown in for good measure.

Indeed, while Corazones may be an understated affair, it covers a fair bit of terrain and mood, including the 1950’s country pop of Lola, with Rodriguez-Lopez’s airy vocals intoning I’ll let you clean this mess all by yourself.

Grief is certainly messy, and the loss of a parent feels like the loss of a limb. The crushing emotions from deep depression to wistful moments of remembrance and nostalgia are deeply complicated, and Corazones makes no attempts to make things overly tidy, from the country ballad/Tom Waits weirdness of It Was Her/Dead Heart to the ramshackle blues-rock vignette Arrest My Father, peppered by a locomotive beat and sprightly harmonica.

Five Different Pieces also evokes the splintered path of loss, with its odd yet winning mix of lounge, latin percussion and power pop, with ORL crooning You made us all bleed/in five different shattered pieces

For anyone who has lost a parent, Corazones strikes a poignant chord. It’s easily the most straightforward and touching effort in his discography, and what he jettisons in musical complexity, he makes up for in emotion.

I have no idea what’s in store on Rodriguez-Lopez’s next album, Blind Worms, Pious Slime. But I can’t wait to leave my expectations at the door and see where he takes us next.

You can order ‘Corazones’ on Amazon below: