LUCAS SANTTANA O Deus Que Devasta Mas Também Cura CD

‘The God Who Devastates Also Cures’ is a technicolour masterpiece of international alt-pop featuring afrobeat tinged electro-rock, soaring symphonic ballads, stuttering Amazonian-reggaeton, head-nodding breakbeats and horn-led ska.
Artists from outside the Anglophone world can tend to be pigeonholed as exotic and ‘other’, but Lucas Santtana, a Brazilian, is clearly focused on universal themes, both musically and lyrically. His new record is a breakup album in the healthily cathartic tradition of ‘Here My Dear’ or ‘Blood On The Tracks’ – turning over the pieces of a broken relationship and wondering how they once fitted together.
With ‘The God Who Devastates Also Cures’, Santtana has created an album of sumptuous variety and depth with at times a nod to Beck and Danger Mouse at their most grandiose – string parts swoon over slinking polyrhythms and puckish samples to create a sonic tableau at once fresh, vital and uniquely distinct. There is a hip hop flavour to the head-nodding brass instrumental ‘Vamos Andar Pela Cidade’, which recalls Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (a band Santtana admires), but then the track after it, ‘Now No One Has Anything’, sounds more like Chicago art-school guitarist David Grubbs. 'The God Who...' sees Santtana reach new heights of musical and lyrical storytelling.

 

1 O Deus Que Devasta Mas Também Cura 3:35
2 Músico 3:34
3 Jogos Madrugais 4:36
4 É Sempre Bom Se Lembrar 3:21
5 Tanto FazSe Pa Ska. S.P 4:36
6 Ela É Belém 4:18
7 Vamos Andar Pela Cidade 2:22
8 Now No One Has Anything 3:33
9 Se Pá Ska. S.P. 5:13
10 O Paladino E Seu Cavalo Altar 4:27
11 Dia De Furar Onda No Mar 4:01
12 Para Onde Irá Essa Noite? 4:37