I am a sucker for all-girl rock bands or rock bands with a woman out front. I think there is something appealing to me hearing a woman with a barely suppressed sneer in her voice backed with driving guitars and drums. My current new band which I have on repeat airplay is Hinds.
Hinds is a Madrid, Spain based quartet which formed in 2011. In 2015 they began to travel outside of Europe and that got them more exposure. I first became aware of them when their single Bamboo went into rotation on the SiriusXM Satellite radio station Alt Nation. They released their first album in January of this year called “Leave Me Alone”. They are part of the lo-fi style where the production values are kept to a minimum. It allows for the guitars to be fuzzier, the drums more muffled, and the voices of lead singers Carlotta Cosials and Ana Garcia Perrote to feel more authentic.
To get a feel for the band check out the “unofficial” official video for the song “San Diego” above. It shows four women living the indie rock life on the road. Even though all videos are just commercials for the band I like the energy that these four young women give off. I think this comes through in the music they produce. The songs on the first album go from hooky pop in the song “Warts” to fuzzed out indie with “Bamboo”. In between the band plays what they want and for a first release it is solid top to bottom.
While I have been listening to this I started considering how far my ability to discover new bands has come. When I became fascinated with Punk Rock in the 1970’s my ability to find the records or to hear it anywhere on commercial radio were slim to none. There was buying vinyl albums imported from Europe for often double the price of a traditional act. Finding a radio show which played anything interesting was also difficult in South Florida. We had exactly two places where you could hear alternative music. One was a public broadcasting station which gave over the 1-3AM slot once a week to Radio Free Miami. The other was the overnight show on the rock station in Fort Lauderdale called WSHE. They gave their longtime late-night DJ the freedom to play whatever he wanted and he ran with it. During a time of my life where I was driving around in the wee hours it was where I would hear something which drove me to the record store to buy another import.
Now I have all the power of finding others who share my tastes on the internet. There are satellite radio stations playing nothing but the kind of music I want to listen to 24/7. YouTube has taken the place of MTV from thirty years ago if a band wants to put out something visual, that’s not too abysmal.
It makes for interesting musical times and for bands like Hinds to find its audience; even an old man living in Maryland.
-Mark Behnke
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