Búho sent us a download of this virtual 7" early last year. I downloaded it and listened to it and liked it, but never got around to actually writing about it. But i put it on recently during yet another round of trying to clean up all the old promos sitting on my phone.
"Ah, a seven inch record," i thought. "I should be able to hammer out a review of this then archive it off of the phone." So i listened again, and found the songs enjoyable. I wrote the bulk of this review, then went on the internet to find out something about the band.
On their label's website i came across this: "Búho officially disbanded on Aug 12, 2014 and have no immediate plans to reconvene in the future."
Well, dammit. Once again my slowness and lack of organization have made my review a little irrelevant. I mean, the band is gone. However, this 7" exists, and in fact if you look at the bottom of the review, i link to the two tunes on SoundCloud, so you can still listen to it.
And i think you might want to listen. Búho were a three-piece post-punk band from San Antonio, TX who made noisy, fast, distorted rock. This stuff reminds me of early Fugazi, Q and Not U, early The Faint (although without keyboards), and any number of early 1980s British post-punk (Magazine, Gang of 4, Wire, etc.). I still listen to a lot of that kind of thing, and i know other people do too.
Well, Búho had something to contribute to that genre. They may be gone, but they left us a few songs...
A-side Endless/Blur is fast guitar whirring by as drums thud and bass thumps mightily. The song is noisy and distorted and tears past you angrily. A little over two minutes in, it calms down a bit, and a voice comes in, a yelling layer buried under the guitar. Nicely angry and messy.
B-side Night Clinics has a different voice, one a little higher pitched and singing instead of yelling. It's still buried in the mix though -- here under a wall of crashing cymbals, crunchy guitar, and rumbling bass. This is the catchier of the two songs. It is dancey in the same way that early Public Image were dancey. That is, it has a great beat that makes you want to pogo around like a maniac.
Búho also have two EPs on BandCamp, and one of them is free. So there is more to listen to here.
The band might be gone, but what they did is still worth hearing.
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