La Vide que Va by Kabah

Looking at my room today, I relized that it time for me to tidy things up a little. Of course, to do so requires some suitable music. Since I have been getting sick of the music that I have, and since my internet connection is far too slow to hunt for decent music on mp3.com, I went down to the record store to augment my music collection. Since I have been on a Kabah kick as of late, I knew I was going to get a Kabah CD. Thankfully, Kabah was on sale at the local record store.

Upon arriving home, I put the Kabah CD "La Vida que Va" in my laptop and started to clean my room. My first impression is that they are looking to branch out beyond synth-pop; a number of songs sound almost like filks of songs I have heard before but can not quite recognize, giving me a sense of deja vu.

My second impression is that Kabah is still struggling to move past their roots as a teeny-bopper band. Some of the stuff has a distinct fluffy quality to it that is the musical equivalent of riding a scooter--fun to listen to, but never admit to anyone that you enjoy the music.

Experienced studio engineers who listen closely to some of the vocals will realize that the singers did a little cheating. I actually think it sounded better back when they heavily reverberated the voices with a Lexicon 480L; the Lexicon trick was particularily effective with their older song "Amor Estudiante".

My main impression, however, is that this is one great album! The CD, as a whole, has an euro-techno feel to it; there are a number of distinct styles of modern synth-pop dance music on this album. As always, the message and music is uplifting and positive, and the beats are dancable. Additionally, the vocal harmonies are even stronger in this album than they were in previous albums, especially in the songs "Vivir por mi", "Tu", and "Llamarme". Federica [1] does an excellent vocal rap in "Ven" [2]; it is the most enjoyable part of that particular song.

The strongest song on the CD is probably its second single, Esta Noche, which has a octave bass line, a la "Blue Monday" by New Order. A very bubbly, happy little song with a distinct Mexican flare to it.

I am a little dissapointed that the US version of this album does not have the Big Brother theme to it as a hidden track (I tried both rewinding from song one and going past the last song; in both cases, nothing); it is better to buy this album in México so that one can get the hidden bonus track. The CD has no attempts at "copy protection", you can rip mp3s to listen to on portable players and put on your hard disk. [3]

This album is Kabah's best work so far; I hope their up-and-coming 2003 album is even better. 4 stars out of 5; minus one star for having a bit of a teen-bop quality to it and for making the vocal pitch correcter a little too obvious.

My review of the band as a whole

Actually, there is some debate among fans whether Daniela (a.k.a. Dana) or Federica does this rap. My first impression was that this was Federica; since other fans agree with me, I will give Federica credit until proven otherwise.
Quiero que te acerques, que me toques, que me quieras,
quiero que te entregues, que me veas , que me quieras,
quiero que te sientes, que me sientas, que me quieras,
quiero que me dejes, que me ruegues, que te quieras,
Quiero que te acerques, que me toques, que me quieras,
que te entregues, que me veas, que me quieras,
que te sientes, que me sientas, que me quieras, me dejes,
que me ruegues, quiero, quiero, quiero, quiero, quiero.
In English:
I want you to get closer, to touch me, to want me
I want you to teach, to see me, to want me
I want you to feel, to feel me, to want me
I want you to allow me, to plead to me, to want me
I want you to get closer, to touch me, to want me, to teach, to see me, to want me
To feel, to feel me, to want me, let me, to plead to me, gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme.
If you abuse this by "sharing" these songs with others on the internet, you deserve to be drawn and quartered. Or, at least, forced to write a functioning DNS server.